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HINGHAM 



A STORY OF ITS EARLY SETTLEMENT AND LIFE, 

ITS ANCIENT LANDMARKS, ITS HISTORIC 

SITES AND BUILDINGS. 




ILLUSTRATED 



Published by 

OLD COLONY CHAPTER 

Daughters of the American Revolution 

19H 



f^H 



H*- 



■D' 



Copyright, 1911, 

BY 

Old Colony Chaptbr 
Daughters of the American Revolution 



^CI.A202S?8 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION 

HISTORIC HINGHAM . . . 
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE 
THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM 
THE HOME MEADOWS . . . 

DERBY ACADEMY 

SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM 
HINGHAM FARMS ..... 
SOME HINGHAM GARDENS 
THE NEGRO GALLERIES . . . 

COLONIAL HOUSES 

DR. EBENEZER GAY .... 

THE GAY HOUSE ON NORTH STREET, 

HINGHAM, AND THE OLD TORY . 

THE HAZLITTS 

THE THAXTER, NOW THE WOMPATUCK 

CLUB, HOUSE 

A TRUE FISH STORY 

THE CHIME OF BELLS 

THE HINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTS AND 

CRAFTS 



Martha A. L. Lane 
Walter L. Bouvd 
Francis H. Lincoln 
Louis C. Cornish 
Mary C. Rohhins 
Francis II. Lincoln 
John D. Long . 
Dallas Lore Sharp 
Mary C. Rabbins . 
Charles H. Porter 



Martin Oay . . . 
Benjamin F. Stevens 

Francis H. Lincoln . 
Helen Whiton 
Dallas Lore Sharp . 

Susan B. Willard . 



PAGE 

6 

9 

16 

28 
61 
56 
59 
68 
71 
78 
81 
99 

102 
106 

110 
115 

118 

120 



(3) 



INTRODUCTION. 

FOR two hundred and fifty years after the settlement of Hing- 
ham the favorite method of approach was by water, and 
there is still no better way to get a first glimpse of the town. 
Sailing south from Boston one enters a cup-shaped arm of the 
bay, dotted with tiny islands, and well-sheltered from the fury 
of eastern gales. Along its green shores lie the scattered houses 
of summer colonies and, at the bottom of the cup, are a few 
wharves and old buildings that date back to the time when Hing- 
ham's mackerel fleet was her chief pride. No longer does the 
daily steamboat make its sinuous way amid the vexing shallows 
of the harbor, but the varied craft of the Hingham Yacht Club 
give a touch of life to the tranquil scene and keep it still allied 
with the former aspect of the place. 

It was from the open waters of Massachusetts Bay that the 
earliest settlers of the town viewed their new home. The 
rounded hill of Crow Point was the first land sighted by them, 
and probably was the spot first trodden by their ocean-weary 
feet. To-day, girdled by attractive summer houses and crowned 
by the links of the Golf Club, it is one of the most beautiful 
localities for miles around. Doubtless the prospect of a safe 
anchorage in the inner basin led those early voyagers into Bare 
Cove, now Hingham harbor. If they came in the late afternoon 
and were so fortunate as to see, over the shoulder of Weary-all 
Hill, the splendid coloring for which Hingham sunsets are 

(5) 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

famous, they must have felt that Heaven smiled upon their 
enterprise. 

The modern traveler who comes into the town by train 
or motor loses something of this picturesqueness, although if he 
enter from the south, down the six-mile drive from Accord 
Pond, he has little reason to complain. From the exquisite 
vistas through the trees on the Mount Blue road to the graceful 
willows " over the river," or down the wide avenue that leads 
through South Hingham and its successive " plains," he faces a 
series of charming views. Arrived at the lower level of the 
main street he finds himself beneath the interlacing branches of 
tall elms, and between rows of dignified old houses which give 
to the town its air of comfort and well-being. At his right, as 
he approaches the railway station, stands the Old Meeting- 
house, the most treasured of all Hingham's possessions. A 
few rods farther on is Derby Academy, justly famous in the 
early years of the nation, and still holding its place in the 
respect as well as in the afiection of the community. Recent 
improvements have done much to beautify the interior of the 
building and to make it worthy of the high ideals for which 
the school stands. Beyond the Academy, under the great elm 
that throws its shadow far across the square toward the railroad, 
is a quaint old house interesting for its connection with colonial 
history. Here were quartered some of the exiled Acadian s 
brought from Grand Pre and its neighborhood after the Nova 
Scotia expedition of 1755. Around the corner may be found 
the headquarters of the Arts and Crafts Society, which has 
already made for itself an enviable reputation. From the top 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

of the hill on the north side of the square one gets an excellent 
idea of the topography of this section of the town and of its 
natural beauty. The blue harbor on the east, the softly rounded 
hills to the north and west, with the wide expanse of the cadet 
camp at one's feet make a picture not readily to be forgotten. 

If the visitor to Hingham enters the town by train from 
Boston, he first crosses the meadows, above and below West 
Hingham, known throughout the region for the forget-me-nots 
which grow all summer in great profusion. Originally brought 
by Allan Gay, a Hingham artist, from the forest of Fontaine- 
bleau, they have spread up and down the brooks, bravely with- 
standing the icy winters and the ruthless handling of the boys 
who gather them for sale in the square. 

There are three other approaches to the town — one over 
the old west turnpike, coming in over Back River bridge and 
pa.ssing along the reservation and the thickly clustered houses 
of the district spoken of by old residents as " up in town ; " 
another, branching from the turnpike at the bridge and skirting 
a lovely stretch of woodland and shore ; and lastly, the roads 
from Nantasket and Cohasset which lie to the eastward. From 
the top of Old Colony Hill the horseshoe curve, begun at Crow 
Point, is completed by the beautiful Martin's Lane and World's 
End drive. 

The day of Hingham's commercial prosperity is in the 
past, and those who love her truly have no wish to see the 
modern equivalent in its place. The white sails of the fishing 
vessels, the carefully tended fields and farms, the wholesome 
smell of new-cut wood and clean cordasre, — these were thinc^s 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

beautiful in themselves, and they gave the flavor of healthy 
activity to a community proud of its industry and its inde- 
pendence. Prosperity, in the business sense of money-making, 
is no longer to be coveted for a town the charm of which lies in 
the quiet beauty and peacefulness of its natural endowment. 
The ideal Hingham will continue to provide, as does a well-kept 
home, for the refreshment and reinforcement of those who find 
chief scope for their commercial activity outside her borders, and 
true prosperity will mean a conservation of all that gives such a 
renewal of strength and life. 

More than two hundred and fifty years ago, Johnson, in his 
"Wonder Working Providence," wrote of the town, "Its form is 
somewhat intricate to describe by reason of the Sea's wasting 
crookes where it beats upon a mouldering shore," nor is the task 
to-day a simple one. The lapse of nearly three centuries has 
not changed to an appreciable degree the physical characteristics 
of Hingham or the nature of her inheritance. There are still 
" wasting crookes," and the famous first settler who " would 
speak his mind " could easily find his counterpart in that 
respect to-day. Sturdy independence has always been a dis- 
tinguishing quality of Hingham stock ; joined with a brave 
liberalism in thought and a cautious conservatism in action, it 
has made her children justly proud of their birthright. Well 
may they take satisfaction in the thought that they can trace so 
directly their descent from those pioneers who founded a new 
freedom in the wilderness across the sea. 

Martha A. L. Lane. 



HISTORIC HINGHAM. 

H INGHAM, with its Old England name carrying us back even 
a step farther than the earliest days of New England chroni- 
cle and legend, with its traditional families, themselves indicative 
of its own origin, its yet numerous venerable houses, its elm and 
maple shaded streets, sometimes straight and broad, then again 
narrow and winding, adorned here with beautiful lawns and artis- 
tic modern residences, and there quaint with the great, square, 
yellow, white-trimmed colonial mansion or the low, gabled, 
unpainted home of the olden days, is one of the towns the story 
of which, touching here upon the Puritan, and there upon the 
Pilgrim, is coeval with and, indeed, not an unimportant part of 
that of the Commonwealth. 

As early as 1633 and 1634 a few families made here their 
abiding-places ; but the settlement leading to the assignment of 
lots was made in 1635, when Peter Hobart, the revered minister 
thereafter for more than forty-three years, landed near the foot of 
what is now Ship Street, at the head waters of the mill stream, 
and held divine worship under the shade of a noble tree now 
gone. The place, heretofore a plantation known as Bare Cove, 
became a town under the name of Hingham, there being but ten 
or eleven older in the State and only one in Plymouth County. 

The earliest settlements were made along what is now North 
Street, formerly Town Street, and soon extended west as far as 
the end of the swamp, thence thi'ough West Street and over Fort 
Hill, from which the adjoining settlement at Weymouth, or Wessa- 
gusset, was reached. The south side of the town brook also, now 

(9) 



10 HISTORIC HINGHAM. 

called South Street, was then called Town Street ; and houses 
were soon built at intervals between Fort Hill and Main Street, the 
lower part of which became, early in our history. Bachelors' Row. 
Main Street throughout its length, with but little variation from 
its present location, was occupied upon either side at a very early 
day ; and there are few finer avenues than this, especially where 
it widens into a modern boulevard at South Hin^ham. Broad 
Cove Lane, now Lincoln Street, from which by a grassy lane Otis 
Hill — then Weary-all Hill — was reached, was also occupied by 
some of the first comers. The lower part of Main Street, near 
the square, then followed for a short distance two separate courses, 
— one over a hill now partially dug away, and then extending a 
short distance westward from where Derby Academy stands, and 
the other around the base of the same hill. The two united and 
became one about opposite the location of Loring Hall. Upon 
the hill stood the first meeting-house, a plain, small log building, 
with a palisade around it for defence against the Indians. At a 
distance of a few rods, at most, the first school maintained by the 
town kept company with the house of worship ; while around 
them both stood the rough stones erected to the memory of our 
dead forefathers. The remains of the occupants of this our first 
cemetery are gathered in the old fort, in which stands a plain 
granite shaft erected as a memorial to the first settlers. This 
fort, in an excellent state of preservation, is in the Hingham 
Cemetery, and not far from the Old Meeting-house. It was one 
of three built at an early day, supposedly about 1675, when King 
Philip was ravaging the settlements from the Atlantic coast to the 
Connecticut River and beyond. The other two were situated, 
one on Fort Hill and the other on the lower plain, not far from 
where now stands the public library. In this connection it may 



HISTORIC HINGHAM. 11 

be as well to relate that during Philip's War, on April 20, 1676, 
several houses at South Hingham and "' Over the River " were 
burned by the red men. 

It is impossible to name in a short article like the present 
all of the early families who came to Hingham, but among them 
were the Lincolns, Herseys, Cushings, Jacobs, Wilders, Burrs, 
Thaxters, Spragues, Chubbucks, Andrews, Bates, Stoddards, 
Sto wells, Gardners, Hobarts, Beals, Towers, Leavitts, Ripley s, 
Joys, Marshes, Lanes, and Whitons ; and the descendants of 
most of them are still found among the substantial residents of 
our community. 

The original limits of Hingham extended from the beautiful 
blue bay on the north to Accord Pond on the south, where it 
bounded upon Plymouth Colony. The westerly limit was 
fixed in part by Weymouth Back River, and the easterly by 
Bound Brook, thus including Cohasset, which was set off in 
1770. Hull, too, was, as now, one of our immediate neighbors, 
and was separated by a salt branch of Weir River. 

The early inhabitants were mainly farmers, and were an 
industrious and thrifty class, who soon developed many other 
industries. In 1645 a corn-mill was erected at or near the 
location of that still singing its cheery song, and another a few 
rods further up the stream. Early in the town's history there 
was a fulling-mill near the pond at South Hingham now known 
by that name. Saw-mills and corn-mills were numerous ; and 
our shores were soon lined with ship yards, where many stalwart 
vessels were built. There were salt-works at several places ; 
and iron foundries, box factories, and bucket factories employed 
large numbers of people in the succeeding years. As early as 
1639 the records tell of the loss of a small ten-ton vessel belong- 



12 HISTORIC HINGHAM. 

ing to John Palmer, of Broad Cove. Subsequently considerable 
commerce was carried on with the West Indies ; and before the 
close of the last century the town had become celebrated for its 
mackerel fishery, which, like many of its other industries, is now 
entirely a thing of the past. 

In 1637 Hingham furnished six men for what is known as 
the Pequot War, and from that day she has never been backward 
in responding to the military calls of the country. Anthony 
Eames was the first military commander ; and Joshua Hobart, a 
brother of the minister and an energetic man, was captain before 
and during Philip's War. At this later period, besides the forts 
already mentioned, there were so-called " garrison houses." 
One of these, standing in the " pass " between Massachusetts and 
Plymouth, was that of Captain John Jacob, a distinguished man 
and soldier of the period. John Tower and his sons defended 
another near Tower's Bridge ; and the Andrews house, recently 
belono-inff to Miss Joanna Lincoln and standing: next the Cush- 
ing House, was a third. It is supposed to be the oldest house 
in the town. 

In the several French wars men from this town served con- 
spicuously and bravely. In the expeditions against the Spanish 
in the West Indies in 1740 and 1762 a number of Hingham men 
participated. The town was foremost among those which led 
and served in the Revolution, and many of her sons took distin- 
guished parts in the long struggle. Most conspicuous of all was 
Major-general Lincoln, who had been secretary of the Provincial 
Congress and a leader in shaping the practical preparations to 
resist British agorression. Eng-asred in the war at various times 
were a number of companies ; and probably over one thousand 
Hingham men participated in it, first and last. A small engage- 



HISTORIC HINGHAM. 13 

ment took place between the British and the Americans on May 
21, 1775, the firing on the patriots' part being from our shore, near 
the mouth of Weymouth River, while the English were on Grape 
Island. The latter were soon driven off. 

The inhabitants in 1776 numbered probably from 2,000 to 
2,500. After the war the town grew slowly but steadily until 
about 1860, since which time its population of between four and 
five thousand has not materially increased. 

Among the most interesting buildings in this country is the 
Old Meeting-house, erected in 1681. It has been occupied unin- 
terruptedly as a house of worship for more than two hundred 
years, besides being the place in early days for holding town 
meetings. The meeting-house of the Second Congregational 
Society at South Hingham is not only interesting as dating back 
to the early days before the Revolution, but also for the noble 
men who have ministered therein. Near the Hingham depot is 
the New North Church, or, more properly, the meeting-house of 
the Third Congregational Society, erected early in the present 
century and the religious home of General Lincoln, Governor 
Andrew, and Governor Long. A large congregation worships in 
the Roman Catholic Church, built in 1872, directly opposite the 
station. 

On North Street, a few rods west of Lincoln Street, is the 
Universalist house of worship, occupied by an earnest and enthu- 
siastic society ; and, still farther on, the Methodists meet in the 
building devoted by them to the service of God. Standing back 
from Main Street and half hidden by great trees is the white 
church of the Baptists, built in 1829 ; while nearly opposite 
Water Street is the modest chapel of the Episcopalians, with 
attractive grounds and shrubbery. Centre Hingham has within 



14 HISTORIC HINGHAM. 

its limits the church of the Evangelical Congregational Society, 
erected in 1848. At South Ilingham, on Gardner Street, an 
undenominational society meets in a small Ijuilding used as a 
chapel ; and on High Street, near the Weymouth line, there is a 
Second Advent church. Among the other public buildings in the 
town are Wilder Memorial Hall, Grand Army Hall, Derby 
Academy, the spacious Armory, the Public Library, Agricultural 
Hall, Loring Hall, and the High and Grammar Schoolhouses. 

In early times packets carried men and merchandise to and 
from Boston ; but these were long since supplanted by steam- 
boats, which for many years added to the delights of a resi- 
dence in a place charming alike for its natural beauties, its 
historical associations, its simple manners, and its comfortable 
homes. The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad now 
controls the old South Shore Company which, since 1849, has 
made it possible to enjoy a home in the country and at the same 
time to carry on a business in the great city. 

A sketch of the town, however slight, would be sadly want- 
inof, were no reference made to the beautiful cemeteries at Fort 
Hill, Hingham Centre, South Hingham, and to the Hingham 
Cemetery itself. In this, the largest of them all, lies what is 
mortal of Major-general Lincoln and Governor John A. Andrew. 
A fine monument marks the grave of the former, and a remarka- 
bly life-like statue stands beside that of the latter. 

Religious bigotry has never found a footing in Hingham. 
In the old days there were many bonds of sympathy between our 
people and those of the Plymouth settlements. Indeed, so 
numerous were the intermarriages that our community was 
almost as much Pilgrim as Puritan in blood as well as in thought. 
Into the anti-slavery agitation of the years that now seem so long 



HISTORIC HINGHAM. 16 

ago the people of Hingham entered with unflagging zeal ; and, 
when the great war for freedom needed the devotion and self-sac- 
rifice of her sons, hundreds of them responded to the nation's call, 
and now sleep quietly in her holiest soil, remembered with love 
and gratitude in that they served and died that their brothers 
might be free and that the Great Republic might survive, a beacon 
light to all the peoples of the earth. 

Walter L. Bouv^. 



During the War of 1812 the countryside was frequently 
thrown into a panic by the approach of British warships. It 
was on one such occasion that two young girls at Scituate actually 
frightened away a hostile vessel by parading up and down the 
beach with fife and drum. Hidden from view, their shrill clamor 
led the captain to believe that a force was gathering against him ; 
and, hoisting sail, he departed. At another time the women and 
children of Hingham were alarmed by the appearance of a strange 
ship in the harbor. Rumors of bombardment drove them to their 
homes. One energetic woman, however, rang the bell of the 
Old Church until she had succeeded in calling the scattered men 
together to defend the town. The tradition stops here, although 
her sons, well known afterward as the firm of R. & C. Lane, 
doubtless remembered their mother's exploit with pride. 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 




T 



OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 



HE " Old Meeting-house " was built in 
1681. It was the second house for 
public worship in the town. The first meet- 
ing-house was built soon after the gathering 
of the church in 1635, and was on the 
main street, on a hill in front of the present 
site of the Derby Academy. For forty-five 
years after the settlement of the town it 
was the only house for public worship. 
As the town grew in numbers, it was found 
necessary to build a larger one to accom- 
modate its inhabitants. After a contro- 
versy of more than a year, in which the governor and magistrates 
took part, the location of the new house was settled ; and on 
July 8, 1681, Captain Joshua Hobart conveyed to the town 
by deed of gift the site for the meeting-house, which was 
the one upon which it now stands. The frame was raised on the 
26th, 27th, and 28th of July, 1681 ; and it was opened for 
public worship Jan. 8, 1681-82. It cost the town £430 and 
the old house, the necessary amount being raised by a rate which 
had been made in October, 1680. Parts of the first meeting- 
house were used in the construction of the new one. For over 
two centuries it has stood, substantially the same as when first 
erected. It is true that it has been enlarged twice, and such 
repairs and minor changes as were necessary have been made 
from time to time ; but all the original timbers of its frame are 

(16) 




5 X 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 17 

still there, sound as when they were first hewn out of the solid 
oak by the strokes of the broad-axe, the marks of which can be 
plainly seen on every hand. 

Its antiquity marks it as one of the principal objects of 
interest in Hingham. The most exhausting research enables us 
to say with entire confidence that the meeting-house of the First 
Parish in Hingham is the oldest house for public worship in the 
United States which stands upon its original site and continues 
to be used for the purpose for which it was erected. 

There were originally galleries on one side and both ends, 
the pulpit being on the side next to the cemetery. There was no 
ceiling until 1731, but all was open to the rafters. Through the 
small circular aperture, now seen in the centre of the ceiling, the 
bell-rope is lowered to the main floor of the house, in order to 
make the bell more accessible in case of sudden alarm. It is 
drawn up into the attic while services are held. The occasion 
for such use has long since passed away, yet the custom of 
lowering the rope is still continued. The square pane of glass 
in the ceiling was placed there to enable the sexton, while ring- 
ing the bell from the attic floor, to see when the minister had 
taken his place in the pulpit, which was his signal to cease ring- 
ing. The original dimensions of the house were fifty-five feet in 
length, forty-five feet in breadth, and the height of the posts 
"twenty or one-and-twenty feet." This width included what is 
now contained between the two side galleries, the wall against 
which the present pulpit stands and the opposite wall being in 
their original places. In 1730 an addition of fourteen feet was 
built upon the side next to the cemetery ; and in 1755 a similar 
addition of fourteen feet was built on the side next to the street, 
these being the spaces covered by the two side galleries. At the 



18 THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 

time of the last addition, 1755, the present pulpit was built and 
placed nearly in its present position. Dr. Gay, the minister, 
preached from it the first time after it was built, from Nehemiah 
viii. 4 : " And Ezra, the scribe, stood upon a pulpit of wood, 
which they had made for the purpose." 

In the same year, 1755, the first pews were built ; namely, 
two rows of square pews all around the house, except the spaces 
occupied by the pulpit and the aisles leading from the porches. 
There was a pew in front of the pulpit, known as the " Elders' 
Pew," or "Elderly Seat," and an enclosed seat or pew in front of 
the Elders' pew, facing the broad aisle, for the deacons. The 
two latter pews were removed in 1828. In the central space or 
body of the house were long oak seats for the occupancy of 
males on one side of the broad aisle and of females on the other. 
These seats were removed from time to time, until the whole 
space was covered by pews. In 1799 five pews were built in 
the front of each side gallery, and in 1804 the same number in 
the rear of those first built, making twenty in all. At subse- 
quent dates all the side gallery pews were removed and new 
pews were built in their place ; namely, eight in the eastern 
gallery in 1854, the same number in the western gallery in 
1855, and in 1857 four were built in the eastern and four in the 
western gallery. In 1859 four pews were built in the front 
gallery, and in 1868 four more had been built in the same 
gallery. 

In 1822 stoves were introduced for the purpose of heating 
the house. It seems incredible that our ancestors could have sat 
through two long services in a New England climate for so many 
years with no heat other than that obtained from foot-stoves or 
similar portable appliances. 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 19 

There was no adequate provision for lighting the house after 
dark until 1870, when oil lamps were put in. These served 
their purpose until 1900, when they gave way to electric lights. 

In 1869 the present pews were built on the floor of the 
house, furnaces were substituted for stoves, and expensive repairs 
were made. Under the southwest corner-stone a lead box was 
deposited, containing appropriate memorials connected with the 
history of the parish. Appropriate services were held to com- 
memorate the reopening of the meeting-house Sept. 8, 1869. 

Aug. 8, 1881, very impressive and interesting exercises 
were held in the meeting-house, in commemoration of the two 
hundredth anniversary of the building of the house. Mr. 
Charles Eliot Norton, a lineal descendant of the second minister. 
Rev. John Norton, during whose ministry it was built, delivered 
the principal address. Music of the various periods since the 
erection of the meeting-house was represented by the " raising 
of the tune " by means of a " pitch-pipe " and " deaconing " of 
the hymn, with singing by the congregation ; the use of various 
musical instruments in connection with a large choir, composed 
of nearly all those living who had ever sat in the " singing 
seats ; " and the organ and quartette choir. At that time a tablet 
of brass, set in mahogany and lettered in antique style, was 
placed on the wall on the westerly side of the pulpit as a perma- 
nent memorial. It has the following inscription : 

'♦Let the Work op our Fathers stand." 

Ministers. 

PETER HOBART 1635-1678-9 

JOHN NORTON 1G78-1716 

EBENEZER GAY 1718-1787 

HENRY WARE 1787-1805 



20 THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 

JOSEPH RICHARDSON 1806-1871 

CALVIN LINCOLN 1855-1881 

EDW» AUGUSTUS HORTON 1877-1880 

HIRAM PRICE COLLIER 1882-1888 

JOHN WILLIAM DAY 1890-1899 

Teacher. 
ROBERT PECK 1638-1641 

This church was gathered in 1635. The fi-ame 
of this meeting-house was raised on the twenty- 
sixth, twenty-seventh, and twenty-eightli days of 
July, 1681 ; and the house was completed and 
opened for public worship on the eighth of 
January, 1681-82. It cost the town £430 and 
the old house. 

Mr. Day's ministry closed in 1899, and Rev. Louis Craig 
Cornish, the tenth minister, was settled in 1900. 

Jan. 8, 1882, a discourse was delivered by Rev. Edward A. 
Horton, at that time the only surviving minister, on the occasion 
of the two hundredth anniversary of the opening of the meeting- 
house for public worship. 

There is some doubt about the general appearance of the 
early New England meeting-houses ; but, from several woodcuts 
which have been preserved of those in other places and from 
some early memorials of towns in which the earlier buildings 
are not now standing, there is strong presumption that our Hing- 
ham meeting-house is of a type of architecture which was not 
unusual, and, perhaps, more commonly in use than any other. 
The nearly square box, with a pyramidal roof surmounted by a 
belfry with " banisters " around it, a steeple in the centre, pro- 
jecting porches, two regular rows of windows with diamond 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 21 

panes of glass (formerly set in lead) interrupted on one side by 
a pair of windows at a different level, which mark the position 
of the pulpit, constitute the customary features of these earlier 
houses. All these are seen in our old meeting-house, almost the 
only one left to remind us of that simplicity which our fathers 
thought becoming to their houses of worship. 

In 1791, one hundred and ten years after the house was 
built, its form and appearance were nearly lost to us of later 
generations. Indeed, the whole structure was dangerously near 
annihilation. The following notes tell the story : 

In June, 1791, it was voted "that the meeting-house be 
repaired in the following manner, viz. : that the roof be carried 
up to a point the same pitch as the south-west roof is over the 
centre of the house ; and that the ridge extend from the north- 
west side of the house to the south-east, the whole width of the 
house ; and that where the porch now stands a tower be built on 
which the bell shall be hung, and such work on the top of the 
tower as shall hereafter be ordered." In February, 1792, it was 
voted " that a tower be built at the south-west side of the meet- 
ing-house for the bell to hang on ; " and, in the following March, 
" that the meeting-house roof be taken off, and a proper pitch 
roof made to correspond with the tower that is to be built, and 
to have proper covings." Subsequently it was voted "to leave 
it to the judgment of the committee to form the roof as they 
shall judge best." In April, 1792, the committee reported that 
the top of the meeting-house was so defective that it was not 
best to repair it without taking off the roof ; and the report was 
accepted. In August of the same year it was voted that the vote 
for taking off the roof " be dissolved ; " and at the same meeting 
it was voted " to take down the meeting-house, and build a new 



22 THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 

one similar to a plan exhibited in the meeting which is on iile, 
60 in favor of it, and 28 against it." Fortunately, however, in 
November, 1792, it was voted " not to take down the meeting- 
house and build a new one on any principles," but " to repair 
the meeting-house in its present form." Extensive repairs were 
made in 1793, in accordance with votes passed to carry out this 
latter vote ; and the old meeting-house was saved. 

Visitors who see the two square pews with their "banister" 
tops, which are preserved in the attic as relics, and which are of 
the style of those removed in 1869, often express regret that the 
old pews were not allowed to remain, and so add to the quaint- 
ness of the interior. For the purposes of an antique relic it is a 
matter for regret ; but the exigencies of the situation required 
their removal, as the following extract from an article in the 
Hingham Journal of Sept. 3, 1869, written by a member of the 
Committee on Repairs, clearly states : 

" Several articles have appeared in the columns of this paper 
during the time the work of repair has been going on, evincing 
no small degree of interest in relation to the manner in which the 
committee who had the work in charge proposed to accomplish it, 
and it is not surprising that therein fears were expressed that 
something would be done in the progress of the work to mar 
the general character of the building ; and the committee ought 
to feel under some obligation to this expression of public feeling, 
in restraining any tendency in this direction, if, unhappily, it 
had any foothold among them. It was no mere desire for change 
or to conform to modern fashions of architecture which led to the 
work of repair, but an apparent necessity for making essential 
repairs had been felt for some years. This, at last, led to an 
examination of the floor of the house ; and this examination 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 23 

revealed the fact that, if the parish wished to preserve their 
house, they must forthwith commence the work of repairs, and 
that nothing short of an entire new floor would answer the pur- 
pose. This rendered the removal of the pews necessary, and the 
removal involved their destruction. There are many associations 
connected with those old pews, full of the deepest interest to 
those occupying them ; and nothing but the sternest necessity 
could have reconciled the owners to their sacrifice. Those old 
square pews were not put in the house when it was first built, but 
were placed there when the last addition was made in 1755." 

The first reference in the records of the parish to the musical 
part of the service is in 1763, when a meeting was held "in order 
to see whether the Parish will assign any particular place, seat or 
seats, where a number of persons skilled in Musick may set 
together that so that part of Religious exercise may be performed 
with decency and order ; " and it was voted " that Mr. Gay be 
desired to invite one or more to set in ye seat behind the Deacons' 
to strike first in singing," and "that a part of the womans' front 
seat and ye second seat, not exceeding one-half of each, be sepa- 
rated for ye use of the singers." In May, 1778, it was voted 
"that the two hindermost seats in the body of the Meeting-house, 
both men's & women's, be appropriated to the use of the singers ; " 
in September of the same year, " that the three hindermost seats 
in the Meeting-house be appropriated to the singers, and that they 
have liberty to make doors & flaps of bords to each seat ; " and 
November, 1779, "to indulge the singers a Liberty to set in 
the front gallery where it best suited them." The first record 
of a musical instrument is in the vote of March 9, 1801, when it 
was voted "that the Parish be at the expense of purchasing a 
Bass-viol and commit it to Barnabas Lincoln, to be used by him 



24 THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 

or his family in the meeting-house to assist the melody, and that 
Mr. Barnabas Lincoln be invited to assist in leading the bass." 
The bass-viol was continued in use from this time until the intro- 
duction of an organ in 1867, and other instruments were used at 
various times. Mr. David A. Hersey played upon the bass-viol 
for nearly fifty years, and Mr. Sidney Sprague upon the flute for 
thirty-six years, their services ending in 1867. 

In 1867 an organ was placed in the front gallery. Previ- 
ously for many years the " singing seats " were in this gallery. 
In 1869, at the time of the general repairs, the location of the 
organ was changed to the platform on the easterly side of the 
pulpit, and in 1870 a new organ was purchased and placed in 
the same position. 

In 1902 Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Clapp, members of the parish, 
expressed a wish to place in the meeting-house a new organ as a 
memorial gift to their son, who died in 1901, and who had been 
an active member of the choir. A portion of the eastern gallery 
was removed, and the organ was placed in the northerly corner 
of the meeting-house. It was dedicated July 31, 1902. Upon 
the organ is a brass plate with the following inscription : 

THIS ORGAN WAS GIVEN TO 

•THE- FIRST-PARISH -HINGHAM- 

BY MR. & MRS. EDWIN CLAPP 

IN MEMORY OF THEIR SON 

■DAVIS- BATES -CLAPP • 

•AD- MCMII- 

On Sept. 24, 1905, there was used for the first time a read- 
ing desk, the gift of friends of Joseph H. French, as a memorial 
of him. Upon it is a brass plate with the following inscription : 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 25 

THIS READING DESK COMMEMORATES 

THE HONORABLE LIFE AND CHEERFUL FAITH OF 

JOSEPH HUMPHREY FRENCH 

1820-1905 

WHO DURING THIRTY YEARS 

WORSHIPED GOD IN THE OLD MEETING HOUSE. 

A bronze tablet in memory of Wilmon W. Blaclonar, placed 
on the southerly interior wall of the meeting-house by the Massa- 
chusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 
was unveiled with suitable exercises on Sunday afternoon, June 
9, 1907. 

On Oct. 11, 1908, there was used for the first time a stand 
for the baptismal bowl. Upon it is a silver plate with the fol- 
lowing inscription : 

TO THE HONORED MEMORY OF 

DEMERiCK MARBLE 

BORN OCT. 7, 1819 DIED FEB. 22, 1898 

BAPTISED IN THIS OLD 

MEETING HOUSE OCT. 23, 1823. 

GIVEN BY HIS SONS 

1908. 

Both the first house and the present one were surmounted 
by a bell. The bell now in use was placed in the belfry July 26, 
1822. 

For some years before the Revolutionary War there was a 
clock in the attic, the dial of which was in the dormer window 
facing the street. For some unknown reason this was removed. 
The time was originally marked by an hour glass which stood 
upon the pulpit. The clock now on the front of the gallery was 
placed there by subscription in 1835, and set in motion on the 



26 THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. 

morning of the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of 
the town. 

Town meetings were held in the meeting-house from 1682, 
when it was first opened for public worship, until 1780, and 
from that date until 1827, either in this house or the meeting- 
house at South Hingham. 

The parish is of the Unitarian denomination. Originally a 
Puritan church and congregation, it changed gradually in its 
belief, under the liberal ministry of Dr. Gay, about the middle 
of the eighteenth century, long before the time when the Uni- 
tarians became an established denomination in this country. It 
continues to be active and prosperous, and maintains public Wor- 
ship in the meeting-house every Sunday throughout the year. 

For the uses of the Sunday-school and other purposes con- 
nected with the religious and charitable work and social life of 
the parish, the Parish House, which stands on Main Street, 
nearly opposite the meeting-house, was built in 1891. 

Nov. 6, 1910, there was a service of dedication by the 
Sunday-school, in the Parish House, of a peal of tubular bells, 
to be used in calling together and dismissing the Sunday-school. 
The bells are enclosed in a mahogany case and were the gift of 
Mrs. George E. Wales, as a memorial to her daughter, formerly 
a member of the school. Upon the case is a brass plate with 
the following inscription : 

TO THE GLORY OF GOD 

AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF 

ELEANOR ELIZABETH GARDNER 

Born June 14th, 1891 Died June I9lh, 1905 

E'en as she trod that day to God, so walked she from her birth — 
In sinapleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth. 



THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE. . 27 

The limits of this sketch do not permit any extended obser- 
vations of a sentimental character concerning this unique relic of 
antiquity ; but for those whose ancestors for seven or eight gen- 
erations have continuously worshipped within its walls, through 
two centuries or more, it is filled with associations which no 
words can express. Fortunately preserved by the wiser second 
thought of those who would have replaced it with a more modern 
structure more than a century ago, scorched by the heat of a 
burning building on one side a half century ago, and threatened 
by a similar occurrence on another side since that time, it still 
stands an inspiration and comfort to those in whose keeping it is 
to-day. The inscription adopted by the parish for its seal 
reflects also the sentiment of all who cherish the memorials of 
earlier times, " Let the Work of our Fathers stand." 

Well may we say with the Psalmist, " This is the hill where 
God desireth to dwell in ; yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever." 

Francis H. Lincoln. 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

A FEW families are known to have come to the shores of 
Bare Cove in 1633, and are believed to have been the first 
settlers. Others came in 1634. The deed to the whole adjacent 
territory given by the Indians thirty years later fixes this as the 
year of the foundation. " Certain Englishmen," it tells us, " did 
come to inhabit in the days of Chickatabut, our father chief 
sachem, and by free consent of our father did set down upon 
his land in the year of our Lord God one thousand six hundred 
and thirty-four." In 1635 some forty-eight settlers came, and 
perhaps as many more in the next three years. Their names 
are given us upon a list, made by Mr. Cushing, the third town 
clerk, " of such persons as came out of the town of Hingham, 
and the towns adjacent, in the county of Norfolk, in the king- 
dom of England into New England and settled in Hingham." 
" The whole number who came out of Norfolk, chiefly from 
Hingham and its vicinity, from 1633 to 1639, and settled in 
Hingham," he tells us further, "was two hundred and six." 

Probably somewhat enlarged by additions from other 
sources, this little company of perhaps two hundred and fifty 
souls apportioned land in 1635, settled a minister, "gathered a 
parish," built a meeting-house, erected their settlement into a 
Plantation, thus gaining representation in the General Court, 
and named their new home Hingham in love for the old home 
across the sea. 

Practical considerations no doubt determined the selection 
of the site. The bay gave good fishing, and the flats yielded 

(28) 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 29 

plenty of shellfish. Then as now the low rolling hills stretched 
pleasantly inland from the harbor's edge. There were sightly 
and well sheltered building spots. The broad open spaces 
offered easy tillage and pasture. There was an abundant supply 
both of wood and of water. The site could be readily defended, 
and provided a convenient waterway to Boston, already a con- 
siderable town and well fortified. Not least of the advantao;es 
was a safe and sufficient anchorage in the landlocked harbor 
with the open sea just beyond it. Possibly another considera- 
tion may have had weight. The distance from Boston insured 
to the Plantation a considerable independence in the management 
of its own affairs. Such may well have been the reasons which 
led to the selection of the shallow bay at the lower end of what 
is now Boston Harbor for the site of the Plantation of New 
Hino;ham. 

With this said, there remains the more interesting question 
what brought these people across the sea ? Why did they leave 
well established homes in the old country to endure the dangers 
and discomforts of life on the edge of an untrodden wilderness ? 
What tempted them to brave the little traveled and perilous 
North Atlantic ? In short, what were the reasons for the migra- 
tion? Although it cannot be briefly stated, the answer is plain. 
To understand it one must journey at least in fancy to far distant 
places and times, and see the erection of this plantation in the 
long perspective of history. 

Our journey will take us over the sea to England, and from 
London northward and eastward through the wide level lands of 
Essex, and Suffolk, and Norfolk. The New Englander will find 
many names made familiar by long association, witnesses to the 
influence of this region upon early New England. Here are 



30 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

Wrentham and Ipswich ; there Stoneham, and Yarmouth, Box- 
ford, Sudbury, and Lynn. Here, too, is the little town of 
Worstead, famed seven centuries ago for its woolen stuffs, a 
name that long since became a household word. The entire 
region has a character peculiar to itself. From the Thames on 
the south to the Wash on the north, these counties form a sort of 
promontory, which looks across the troubled Northern Sea to 
Holland and Belgium, countries which they much resemble. 
The wide marshlands are deserted and again flooded each day by 
the tide, and the far-famed Norfolk Broads call to mind the flat 
surfaces of the neighboring lowlands. 

Not in appearance only is this promontory like the low 
countries. From them it drew some of its blood, and much of 
its spirit. This easternmost part of England has been called the 
hotbed of independency. It was one of the strongholds, if not 
the very stronghold, of that independent spirit which in the late 
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries established constitu- 
tional government in England, and planted it on the edge of the 
American wilderness. 

Curious testimonies regarding the persistency of Norfolkshire 
independency are on record. In passing, two may be selected 
from many others. The Evangelist Wesley, writing a century 
after our period, said of Norwich, " Whatever be the color of 
their religious convictions, they do all dearly love a conflict." 
And a modern writer, tracing this independency through the 
later infusions of Flemish and Huguenot blood to the early 
Scandinavian settlement, ends sadly, " This spirit has persisted 
through all changes to the present time, causing Norfolk to be 
the greatest hotbed of nonconformity to be found to-day within 
the three seas." 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 31 

It will be well briefly to trace back this Norfolkshire inde- 
pendence that we may see how deep buried its roots are in the past. 
In the very early days there are traces of Scandinavian settle- 
ment in this region. Later William the Conqueror brought over 
weavers from Flanders, who settled in Norwich and laid the 
foundation of the city's prosperity. Later by three centuries 
Edward the Third invited over Flemish artisans, who settled in 
Norwich and its vicinity. Their number was large, and they 
intermarried with the people. Later still, wherever these 
foreigners had settled there developed a stronghold of the Reform- 
ation, and later yet a center of this independency. Perhaps more 
potent than the infusion of foreign blood was the persistent 
influence and example of the foreigners. Through these centuries 
there was constant intercourse with the low countries, the nursery 
of European independency, and the foreigners in Norfolk and 
vicinity enjoyed substantial privileges that were denied to the 
people. So founded and fostered, this independency was shown 
in countless ways. To cite only one illustration, about 1360 
Wyclifie spread a knowledge of the Bible. In the persecution 
which twenty years later overtook his followers more persons died 
at the stake in Norfolk than in all the other counties of England 
put together. Among the first was William Carman from 
Hingham. In short this eastern promontory of England was a 
region possessed from the earliest days of peculiar inheritances 
and influences. Norfolk was an important part of this region, 
Norwich was the center of it, and some sixteen miles out of 
Norwich lay the little town of Hingham. 

The facts known to us about the Old Hingham of three cen- 
turies ago are like bits of a broken mosaic. Judged by them- 
selves, though not without antiquarian interest, they have no 



32 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM, 

great meaning. Placed in their pattern, however, they take on 
a large significance and are seen to be part of a great design. 

The mosaic into which the facts about Old Hingham should 
be fitted is no less than the history of England from 1600 to 1650, 
momentous years which witnessed the rise of modern democracy. 
The struggle for freedom it is true can be traced far back of this 
period. Judged broadly it is as old as time. But in this half 
century certain distinct democratic aspirations after freedom 
slowly took definite form and were securely established for all 
English speaking people. For our purposes modern democracy 
began in the last part of Elizabeth's reign, came more plainly 
into view in the reigns of James and Charles the First, and was 
permanently established in the Commonwealth under Cromwell. 
Emerging about 1600, modern democracy took definite form and 
grew in strength until it established constitutional government 
fifty years later. Such is the pattern of history into which the 
story of Hingham must be fitted to be understood. It was part 
of a great movement, the result of a vital struggle in human 
development. 

Mighty human issues hung upon this contest. Absolute 
monarchies were rising on the continent. It was boldly said in 
James' Parliament, and probably with truth, that England was 
the only country in Europe where the people were fighting for 
their rights. The issue was clear-cut. On the one side were 
the common people, sometimes ignorant and mistaken, but dog- 
gedly persistent. The parish clergy often were with them, and 
a few of the bishops. On the other side was the Court, compris- 
ing the King, the nobles, and the higher clergy. The latter, 
themselves mostly of gentle birth and created by the Crown, 
naturally were devoted to its interests. The two parties were 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 33 

fundamentally at variance. The Court neither understood nor 
sympathized with the rising democracy. Its conception of the 
state was w^holly aristocratic, government from above downward. 
The people, impatient of these practices, were groping toward the 
modern conception that government rests upon the consent of the 
governed. The people desired to increase the powers of their 
Parliament. The Crown desired to govern without the Parlia- 
ment, or with a Parliament made entirely docile. The people 
were feeling their way toward constitutional government. The 
Court was dreaming of absolute monarchy. 

This fundamental disagreement must be kept in mind if the 
contest and its importance are to be understood. Unfortunately 
the issue is obscured by theological and ecclesiastical quarrels, 
and by the romantic appeals of the cavaliers and round-heads. 
To look on this controversy, however, as concerned primarily 
with churchly or philosophical matters is to profoundly mistake 
its meaning. Modern democracy, and nothing less, was emerg- 
ing for its age-long struggle against absolutism and privilege. 
It is in this broad aspect of the contest that we are all alike 
interested . 

To understand it we must lay aside our preferences for 
churchly ceremonials and definitions of religion. On these 
matters we differ. But about the desirability of a truly repre- 
sentative government, concerning the people's right to govern 
themselves, upon the principle that we will pay no taxes except 
those which we ourselves shall levy, about our freedom to think 
and act as we please, and to worship God as we deem helpful, on 
these essential underlying principles of democracy we all agree. 
In England there was a mighty difference of opinion about 
these matters between 1600 and 1650. Men fouo;ht for them to 



34 THE SETTLEMENT OF H INGHAM. 

the death and to the death men fought ag^ainst them. It was for 
these great privileges of freedom that together with others the 
men of this eastern promontory were contending. 

While the contest was so broad in its scope that it is diffi- 
cult to show it in any brief compass, there were two points 
around which it clearly centered. The Church sought to sup- 
press all right of private judgment and independent action. 
The Crown sought to tax the people without their consent. 
Upon these difficulties the conflicting parties met and met again. 
It may be profitable for us to look at two fairly typical 
instances where these diflferences are shown, and where the part 
played by the eastern promontory is also revealed. 

The first instance shows the temper of the Church in regard 
to the freedom of the individual. Persecution of independently 
minded people gradually increased through the century preced- 
ing our period. We find a number of persons burned in Nor- 
wich and its vicinity. For example, in 1556 William Carman of 
Hingham is burned in Norwich for being " an obstinate heritic," 
and for having in his possession " a Bible, a Testament, and 
three Psalters in the English tongue." In 1593 the Lords 
passed a bill making it punishable by death merely " To hold an 
opinion contrary to the ecclesiastical establishment of the realm." 
The bill did not become law. Reflecting perhaps upon the diffi- 
culty of judging unexpressed opinions, the Commons amended 
it. As passed the law provided that, "Any person . 
writing or saying anything against the Crown in ecclesiastical 
causes . . . shall be imprisoned without bail [It should be 
remembered what the English prisons were at the time], 
and at the end of three months shall be banished from 
the kingdom forfeiting all his goods and chattels, and the income 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HI N Gil AM. 35 

of his real estate for life. Persons refusing to leave, or return- 
ing, shall suffer death as felons." This was for writing or saying 
anything against the Crown in ecclesiastical matters. Here 
surely was government from above downward ! That the eastern 
promontory did not take willingly to this procedure is shown by 
the comment of Sir Walter Raleigh. He held that there were 
no less than 20,000 persons in this vicinity to whom the law 
applied. 

The next incident shows the temper of the Crown in the 
matter of taxation. It will be remembered that on the death of 
Elizabeth in 1603 James the First came to the throne. He 
reigned until 1624, when he was succeeded by Charles the First. 
During these years continual quarrels arose between the King 
and people over the right of the Crown to levy taxes without the 
consent of Parliament. For example, King James reproves the 
Parliament for asking him how the taxes had been expended. 
The Parliament then records its conviction that this matter is a 
part of its duty and proper privilege. For answer the King 
goes to the House of Commons and with his own royal hand 
tears from the Book of Records the pages on which the resolu- 
tion is written. 

The same struggle is shown in a stronger light some years 
later. King Charles sends soldiers to arrest the refractory mem- 
bers of Parliament. A member sees them coming, locks the 
door in their faces, and holds the speaker in his chair while the 
Commons passes the famous resolution, declaring that thereafter 
any man paying taxes levied without the consent of Parliament 
shall be considered an enemy to the liberties of England. This 
member was Sir Miles Hobart, representative from Norfolk. 

Arrayed against this absolutism in Court and Church was 



36 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

the people's independence. Widespread throughout all England, 
perhaps this independent spirit found its largest single expres- 
sion in southeastern England in the little promontory where our 
interests are centered. 

Curious incidents show how strong was this temper in Nor- 
folk. In Norwich the citizens occasionally rang the church bells 
during the sermon time at the cathedral, and even interrupted the 
sermon with questions. We find Robert Brown, later known as 
the Father of Congregationalism, much in Norwich, where at last 
he was imprisoned. As early as 1580, his followers had consid- 
ered migrating from Norfolkshire either to Scotland or the Island 
of Gurnsey in order to enjoy freedom of speech. John Robinson, 
who later led the Pilgrims from Austerfield and Scrooby to Hol- 
land, and who later yet helped on if he did not initiate their 
removal to Plymouth, was a settled minister of St. Andrew's 
Parish in Norwich between 1602 and 1607, where he may have 
been known to Robert Peck. Cromwell's mother was a Norwich 
woman, and Cromwell was much in this vicinity. Norfolk was 
one of the seven shires later associated for his support, and from 
Norfolk came many of his ironsides. 

Through these years the ofiicials in Norfolk had hard work 
of it. Bishop Harsuet of Norwich, for example, is disliked by 
the people because he favors the Court, and by the Court for the 
contrary reason that he favors the people. In 1619 he is singu- 
larly accused of holding " both papistical and puritanical leanings." 
Evidently the poor bishop did what he could. In 1624 we find 
him thanking the bailifis of Yarmouth, a short distance from 
Hingham, for closing conventicles. In the same year complaints 
are lodged against him in Parliament for suppressing sermons 
and lectures, exacting undue fees, persecuting parishioners who 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 37 

refused to bow to the east, setting up images in the churches, 
and the like. He answers that these accusations proceed from 
the independents ("Puritans") whom he has vainly tried to sup- 
press. As the conflict grew more bitter these difficulties increased. 

Much more might be related to show the temper of independ- 
ency and its expression in Norfolkshire. But this outline will 
serve as a background. AVith these facts in mind, let us look at 
one of the fragments of Hingham history that has survived these 
three centuries. We learn that in 1G05 Kobert Peck became 
minister of St. Andrew's Parish, Hingham, a conspicuous and 
influential position. The son of a country gentleman, who traced 
his ancestry back through twenty generations to an ancient York- 
shire family, he was born in Beccles, Sufi'olk, a short distance 
from Hingham, in the year 1580. Beccles had been made con- 
spicuous by the burning of several heretics there a few years 
earlier. At the age of sixteen Peck entered Magdalene College, 
Cambridge University, then the academic center of the democratic 
movement, receiving his Bachelor's degree in 1599, and his 
Master's in 1603. It is to be noted that John Robinson was 
much in Cambridge until 1601, when he resigned his fellowship 
to take up his work in Norwich. The two men may well have 
been acquainted at the University. In his twenty-fifth year Peck 
was inducted into his first and only parish, which he served 
through many vicissitudes for fifty-three years until his death in 
1658. 

The contest which we have reviewed was at his doors. In 
the year of his settlement, 1605, five ministers were expelled from 
their parishes in the diocese of Norwich, all neighbors of Robert 
Peck, and undoubtedly known to him. Soon after John Robinson 
left Norwich for Scrooby. In 1615 Peck was himself reported 



38 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

to Parliament for nonconformity and misdemeanors, in other 
words for his independency. We are told also that on one occa- 
sion the citizens of Norwich petitioned Parliament in his behalf.* 

Before continuing with the Hingham history it is necessary 
to recall that in 1625 Charles the First succeeded his father. He 
early chose as an advisor William Laud, who became Archbishop 
of Canterbury. With him the struggle to make England con- 
form was carried to its greatest lengths, and he early turned his 
attention to this eastern promontory. 

Sir Nathaniel Brent had been sent down to hold a metro- 
politan visitation. We are told that " many ministers appeared 
without priests' cloaks and some of them suspected for non- 
conformity, but they carried themselves so warily that nothing 
could be gathered against them." Eobert Peck is believed to 
have been among this number. 

Such a condition of afiairs was intolerable to Archbishop 
Laud, who now transferred Bishop Wren from Hereford to 
Norwich. This prelate's policy has survived in a single phrase, 
"Uniformity in doctrine and Uniformity in discipline." He 
beffan at once to enforce these uniformities and in the little more 
than two years of his administration " he caused no less than 
fifty godly ministers to be excommunicated, suspended, or 
deprived." 

These fifty men would not read the Book of Sports in the 
churches as they were bidden. The book exhorted the people 
to play games on Sunday in Continental fashion, and was 

* The writer has not been able to verify the statement, but regards it as probable. 

Robert Peck married Anne Lawrence, whose father was " a reverend grave minister, a 
preacher to those who, fleeinsf for religion in Q. Marie's days, met together in woods and 
secret places as they could. He was a gentleman of great estate, and exceeding in liberality 
to the poor." 




ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, HiNGHAM, NORFOLK, ENGLAND, 
AS SEEN FROM THE RECTORY GROUNDS 




THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY PEWTER BAPTISMAL BASIN, OWNED BY THE FIRST 

PARISH, BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN BROUGHT FROM ENGLAND BY THE FIRST SETTLERS. 

IT HAS BEEN IN CONTINUOUS USE FOR NEARLY THREE CENTURIES. 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 39 

abhorrent alike to the Sabbath-keeping people and clergy. They 
persisted in using " conceived " prayers in addition to the 
liturgy ; that is, they offered prayers of their own composing, 
an offence strictly forbidden. They further stood at the desks 
instead of facing the communion table when they read. Their 
other misdemeanors were of a similar nature. Among those 
excommunicated was Robert Peck, now a man over fifty years 
of age. 

When Bishop Wren, largely for his doings in Norfolk, was 
impeached before the Parliament two years later special mention 
is made of Robert Peck. The Bishop says in his defence : " It 
appears in the records of this House that Robert Peck had been 
complained of for misdemeanors, and that in 1616 and 1622 he 
was convicted for nonconformity." These statements show that 
through these years Robert Peck had been fighting for the 
rights of the people and had been brought to the attention of 
Parliament three times. 

The Hingham story has many turnings. We must now 
look back to the earlier years of Peck's ministry. It may be 
noted in passing that in 1619 he baptized Samuel Lincoln, the 
fourth great-grandfather of Abraham Lincoln. Fourteen years 
earlier, in 1605, he baptized a little baby who was destined to 
play a notable part in the lives of many Hingham people. This 
boy was Peter Hobart, a founder and the first minister of New 
Hingham. Robert Peck baptized him doubly, first into the 
fellowship of the faith and then into the Christian ministry. 

Much might be said of the Hobart family with which Peter 
was connected. The member who held the Speaker of the 
House in his chair in the incident already cited was a Hobart. 
Sir Henry Hobart was Attorney General to James the First, 



40 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

and afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. 
The family was prominent in the region. Their altar tomb with 
its paneled sides, built in 1507, may still be seen in the nave 
of Norwich Cathedral. The fact that it survived the later sack- 
ing of the Cathedral is probably a proof of the standing of the 
family. Peter's kinship with these distinguished men has not 
been traced. Some kinship is probable, if not certain, and in 
temper he was truly related to them . 

Peter was sent first to a grammar school, then to a Free 
School in Lynn, and thence to Magdalene College, Cambridge, 
where he graduated in 1625, from the same college where 
Robert Peck had graduated twenty-two years earlier. Next he 
became a " teacher," delivering lectures and preaching. But 
because of his independence he had difficulty in securing a 
parish. Cotton Mather tells us that " his stay in England was 
attended with much unsettlement." Mather also adds this one 
mention of his wife : " Yet by the blessing of God on his 
diligence and by the frugality of his virtuous consort, he lived 
comfortably." In 1635, together with the others from Old 
Hingham and its vicinity, he migrated to New England, where 
he joined his father and a few other settlers who had established 
themselves about two years earlier on the shore of Bare Cove, 
now Hingham harbor. 

While Hobart had been growing to manhood, the troubles 
between King and Parliament had deepened. Taxes had been 
levied without the Parliament's consent and collected by force. 
Archbishop Laud as we have seen had taken in hand the govern- 
ment of the churches. And events had been happening at 
Norwich that were no doubt much discussed in Old Hingham. 
The Dutch and Flemish people, we remember, had long been 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 41 

established in Norwich and its neighborhood. For many years 
their independent churches had existed under a special grant of 
Edward the Third. Despite the royal grant, however, the 
Archbishop proceeded to close these churches. E-ather than 
submit the Dutch and Flemish people migrated back across the 
sea to the low countries. Many hundred people, it is said, left 
Norfolkshire. Perhaps as many as four thousand left the vicinity 
of Norwich. The exodus resulted in great detriment to the city 
and to the region, for these men were expert weavers. 

In short, a great harrying process was in progress. King 
James had said that he would harry the independents out of 
England. By continuing the process Charles hoped to make 
England an absolute monarchy, and by this same process the 
Archbishop hoped to establish absolute ecclesiastical authority. 
He was trying to build that dreaded " Imperium in imperioy" the 
kingdom within the kingdom, which was so feared by our 
fathers. 

The Archbishop was seeking to make the Church the 
supreme agency in the government. It is well for us to under- 
stand what this meant to individual liberty. He revived the 
ecclesiastical courts. He forbade the right of assembly. Men 
could not meet for an evening's talk without fear of examination 
and penalty. For such an offence we learn that Robert Peck 
and his people were disciplined in Hingham. Peck had been 
repeating the catechism with a group of his parishioners, and with 
them had sung a psalm. We learn also that " he had infected his 
parish with strange opinions." A man might be fined, exiled, 
perhaps banished or killed for like offences. It was for sound 
reasons that our fathers dreaded the " imperium in imperio." 

The reasons for all the miirration to the low countries and 



42 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

to New England are rooted in this determination of the Arch- 
bishop and King to complete the work begun by King James, 
to harry all the Puritans out of England. However academic 
and shadowy this word "Puritan" may now have become, the 
King and Archbishop used it with broad inclusiveness. They 
meant literally to harry out of England all persons opposed to 
ecclesiastical courts and like institutions of tyranny civil or 
ecclesiastical, in short all who contended for a free and consti- 
tutional government. Under the name of Puritan they doubt- 
less would have included every reader of this article, no matter 
what his shade of religious opinion or affiliation. It was while 
these difficulties were at their heisfht that the first exodus took 
place from Old to New Hingham. 

The immediate causes are at present unknown to us. For 
gathering in the rectory and singing a psalm together, as has 
been said, Bishop Wren had the culprits before him in the 
Church, and made them answer to each charge, " I do humbly 
confess my sin." The incident may well have played a part in 
their determination to migrate. Peck was a marked man, as 
was shown by the reports to Parliament, and by his " infection 
of the town with strange opinions." Hingham was under sus- 
picion of liberality and independence. These considerations 
cannot fail to have had weio;ht. 

Probably the whole atmosphere of the time and place led 
naturally to the migration. Many people were leaving England. 
Cromwell, it is said, just missed coming to America. The Hing- 
ham people had seen the weavers driven out of Norwich and a 
rich industry laid in ruin. They had seen similar removals all 
around them. They well knew the meaning of the contest, and 
their cause at this time was deep in shadow. Beside migration 



THE SETTLEMENT OF H INGHAM. 43 

there was no other relief for independent men from the tyranny 
of Church and State. In 1635 the second company came out, 
and among them Peter Hobart. 

These settlers of 1635, as the others probably had done 
before them, came from Charlestown by boat, and landing on 
the shore of what is now the mill pond, Peter Hobart offered 
prayer for the blessing of God upon the new settlement. This 
may be fairly called the beginning of the Plantation. Events 
quickly followed. Land was apportioned in the summer of 
1635, and in October of the same year the name of Hingham 
was recognized by the General Court. Peter Hobart " gathered" 
the parish, and erected the first meeting-house, a log building 
surrounded with a palisade. 

After the exodus conditions in Norfolkshire grew steadily 
worse. The Archbishop by this time had silenced the week-day 
lectures, confiscating their endowments ; in many places he had 
abolished preaching ; and he had revived ecclesiastical forms 
long disused and obnoxious to the people. On entering and 
leaving the churches the people were bidden to courtesy to the 
east, a practice unknown since the Reformation. Since the 
Reformation also the communion tables for the most part had 
stood in the broad aisles. The Archbishop now ordered them 
to be restored to the east end of the churches, and to be raised 
three feet above the chancel floors. To us this order seems 
harmless. 

But to understand the bitter controversy which it provoked 
we must remember that our forefathers saw in this far more than 
a question of decorous public worship. When Governor Endi- 
cott, for example, cut out the cross from the English flag the 
act had many meanings. It surely was more than a question of 



44 THE SETTLEMENT OF H INGHAM. 

buntins and decoration. So the location of the communion 
tables contained meanings other than at first appear. The ques- 
tion then involved large political issues. For sound reasons it 
appeared to the fathers to be a matter of political liberty. The 
whole issue in short was grave and serious. There were open 
quarrels in the churches, protests from the Bishops, parlia- 
mentary commissions, petitions to Parliament, and a great ado. 

It is now to be remembered that Robert Peck was a marked 
man, three times reported to Parliament, convicted of noncon- 
formity. But to this order about the communion tables he 
could not submit. He not only refused to obey. He went 
further. He dug the floor of his chancel a foot below the floor 
of the church, and there placed his communion table, endeavoring 
to make it symbolic of humility. This was a daring and a last 
defiance flung in the face of an opposing power capable of crush- 
ing him. Having done this thing, for which if caught he would 
certainly have been imprisoned, he fled over the sea, joining his 
former parishioners and fellow townsmen in New Hingham, 
where Peter Hobart, who had grown up under him, and whom he 
had baptized doubly thirty- three years before, was now the 
minister. So, as Cotton Mather tells us, "This light having 
been by the persecuting prelates put under a bushel was, by the 
good providence of Heaven, fetched away into New England, 
where the good people of our Hingham did rejoice in the light 
for a season." 

Robert Peck did not come alone. Many of the best families 
of Old Hingham came with him, about thirty in number. If one 
may hazard a comparison between the companies, the earlier 
comprised more men of Peter Hobart's generation, the last more 
men of Robert Peck's generation, men well established in Old 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 45 

Hingham, in some instances probably the fathers of those who 
had come out in 1635. Blomfield, no friend to the Puritans, 
tells us in his history that these men came at great sacrifice, 
selling their possessions for half their value. Not a few in their 
coming showed that they still were possessed of afiluence. For 
example, Joseph Peck, brother of Robert, brings his wife and 
two children, and with them three maids and two menservants, 
five servants for four people. Even to-day this would be con- 
sidered luxurious ; for that time it was far more exceptional. 

The names of these families, about one hundred and thirty 
in all, have become well known the whole land over. The names 
are as follows : 

Jacob, Lincoln, Ilobart, Gushing, Gibbs, Lane, Chubbuck, Austin, 
Baker, Bates, Betscome, Bozworth, Buckland, Cade, Cooper, Cutler, Farrow, 
Fop, Gould, Hersey,--^Hodsdin, Smith, Johnson, Large, Loring, Hewett, 
Liford, Ludkin, Morse, Nolton, Otis, Phippeny, Palmer, Porter, Rust, Smart, 
Strong, Tuttil, Walton, Andrews, Arnall, Bacon, Collier, Marsh, Martin, Peck, 
Osborn, Wakely, Gill, Ibrook, Cockerum, Cockerill, Fearing, Tucker, Beal, 
Eames, Hammond, Hull, Jones, Lobdin, Langer, Leavitt, Mott, Minard, 
Parker, Russell, Sprague, Strange, Underwood, Ward, Woodward. Winches- 
ter, Walker, Barnes, Cobbit, Clapp, Carlslye, Dimock, Dreuce, Hett, Joshlin, 
Morrick, Nichols, Paynter, Pitts, Share, Turner, Tower, Gilman, Foulsham, 
Chamberlain, Bates, Knights, James, Buck, Payne, Michell, Sutton, Moore, 
Allen, Hawke, Ripley, Benson, Lawrence, Stephens, Stodder, Wilder, Thax- 
ter, Hilliard, Price, Burr, Whiton, Lazell, Stowell, Garnett, and Canterbury. 

Here then were some one hundred and thirty families trans- 
planted from the level country of that eastern promontory, from 
the broad and fertile Norfolk fields, the comfort of well estab- 
lished homes, the simple and pleasing dignity of Old Hingham, 
to the sandy soil, the shallow harbor, the hardship and desolation 
of the remote wilderness, to the frontier edge of an untrodden 
continent. This is something worth pondering on. Search the 



46 THE SETTLEMENT OF H INGHAM. 

records as we may the plainer becomes the fact that the predomi- 
nating motive which brought them here was the love of liberty. 
They were moved by that spirit of democracy which in ever 
increasing strength has been slowly changing the face of the 
world, and whose greatest single expression is found to-day in 
our Republic. They believed, as the fourth great-grandson of 
Samuel Lincoln described democracy, in government "of the 
people, by the people, and for the people." And the Hingham 
Plantation in those early days contributed in no small measure to 
the formation of that spirit of New England independency which 
later so largely shaped our national institutions. 

The story of the exodus, however, must not merge into the 
history of the Hingham Plantation, which happily still continues. 
Perhaps no better ending can be given this narrative than to 
follow the life of Robert Peck to its close. New Hingham made 
him the co-laborer with Peter Hobart, curiously enough reordain- 
ing him to this office. Many New England parish pulpits 
were thus " double-barreled." In this capacity he served New 
Hingham for three years, living on the land now owned by the 
First Parish just to the south of the Old Meeting House. 

Meantime in England the mighty storm of protest and 
rebellion was 2:atherino;. Kino; Charles was forcinsj the Parlia- 
ment to arms. The beginnings of the Commonwealth were 
appearing. The King and Archbishop could not heed the inde- 
pendency of a Norfolk minister, no matter how flagrant. So in 
1641 the people of Old Hingham urged Robert Peck to return to 
them. Peck's successor had reported that the people were " very 
factious, resorting to other Churches." The last exodus of 1638 
had indeed left the town in a pitiable condition. A curious peti- 
tion, still preserved in manuscript in the Bodleian Library at 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 47 

Oxford, sets forth the pathetic straits to which the community had 
been reduced, and gives a picture of the times that is worth noting. 

It is addressed to "the Right Honorable the Knights, Bur- 
gesses and Cittizens of the House of Commons," and is entitled, 
"The humble peticon of the Inhabitants of the poore ruinated 
towne of Ilingham." It "in most humble wise sheweth" how 
Eobert Peck had for thirty and two years been discharging the 
office of faithful pastor, " being a learned, godly, loving, peaceful 
and painful minister, a man so unblameable in his life and doc- 
trine that no just offence in either could ever be found concern- 
ing him." It tells how he was excommunicated for not appearing 
in person before the Chancellor of the Diocese, how when he 
sought reinstatement he must sign " certain new Articles," how 
on his refusal the Bishop took away his living, " and put in 
Curates to the vexation of the parson and parishioners." " About 
a year and a half after they deprived him under a pretence of 
non-residency ; yet he did always abide where he had so long 
lived, having had such a care of his charge in religion and civil 
affairs, that the people were able to maintain their poor and to 
help other towns, as neighboring Townes can well witnesse." 

The petition next touches on the reasons for the exodus. 
" The minister being driven away, and forced in his old age to 
flee to seek his peace, and diverse of the inhabitants put to great 
loss and charges by the Chancellor and other ecclesiastical offi- 
cers, some for going to a neighboring towne to hear a godly 
minister preach, and most of them for building a mount in the 
east end of the Chancel, and of observing ceremonies to which 
they were inforced ; (it transpires that) Most of the able inhabi- 
tants have forsaken their dwellings, and have gone several ways 
for their peace and quiet, and the towne is now left and like to 



48 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

be in misery by reason of the meanness of the (remaining) 
inhabitants." 

The petition relates recent difficulties and ends with one 
most illuminating incident that occurred some time after the 
exodus. A fair was held in the town on St. Matthias Day. A 
neighboring minister, Mr. Vylett, was asked to preach. 
"Amongst other godly exhortations he did wish the people to 
make use of the means of grace for (he said) some lights are gone 
out of this land." For this reference to Robert Peck and his 
associates Vylett was immediately deprived of his right to 
preach, and had to make two journeys up to London before he 
could be reinstated. 

The petition ends with " humbly craving redresse, that 
Mr. Peck our old minister may be by law and justice of this 
Court reduced to his old possession." 

As the date when this petition was submitted to Parliament 
is unknown, it probably was about 1640, we cannot tell what 
direct connection it had with Peck's return. But he is believed 
to have left New Hino;ham in 1641. "The invitation of his 
friends at Hingham in England," Cotton Mather tells us, "per- 
suaded him to return unto them ; where, being thought a great 
person for stature, yet a greater for spirit, he was greatly ser- 
viceable for the good of the Church." It could have been no 
easy thing for him to have returned to " the poor ruinated towne," 
whence most of his friends had fled. But he went back to take 
up again his interrupted ministry, and to bear his part in the 
approaching conflict. There can be no doubt that thorough 
research in England would bring; to lio-ht more concerning both 
Peck and his associates. 

The times had dealt hard with the Bishop of Norwich, sue- 



THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 49 

cessor to the Bishop who had persecuted Robert Peck. The 
citizens had sacked his palace, had burned his papers and books 
in front of the cathedral, and stripped alike of his private for- 
tune and emoluments and broken in health the poor bishop took 
refuse in Old Hingham, where both he and Robert Peck lived for 
the remainder of their lives. 

One last incident of Peck's ministry must be mentioned. 
In 1654 he was appointed on a Parliamentary Commission to 
" eject the scandalous, ignorant, and inefficient ministers and 
schoolmasters of Norfolk and Norwich." Perhaps this was not 
an uncongenial task ! 

He died in 1658, and, as he himself directed in his will, was 
buried " beside my wife and near my church." His will, it is 
pleasant to note, breathes a suggestion of plenty. He speaks of 
" My messuage, with all its edifices, yeards, and orchards, also 
enclosures and barns adjoining." He speaks also of " my lady- 
close," possibly a part of some convent land. Evidently his 
last years were spent in comfort, perhaps even in affluence. On 
his death he had served his parish for fifty-three years, of which 
three years had been given to this section that had removed 
itself across the sea. 

The happenings at New Hingham in themselves form a story 
of no small significance. But we are concerned here only with 
the causes which led to the erection of this Plantation. When 
these causes ceased to be operative, that is, when the monarchy 
fell and the Commonwealth under Cromwell came into power, 
immigration to New England wholly ceased. For the next two 
centuries there was little growth in the New England Colonies 
except that which came by their own natural development. No 
more convincing proof could be shown that combined as it was 



50 THE SETTLEMENT OF HINGHAM. 

with many others the main motive of the immigration was the 
love of freedom. 

We are confronted to-day with rapidly shifting conditions. 
A newer New England is supplanting the old. Customs and 
traditions are being established among us which, if not hostile to 
our democratic spirit, are alien to it. This is because some of 
our newer and older citizens alike are often ignorant of our his- 
tory and of the heroic service by which the men of the older 
time purchased our freedom. Surely we can most profitably 
remember the history of the New England settlements. And by 
no means least among them is the story of the erection of this 
free Plantation of New Hingham. Unless deep disappointment 
awaits those who hope that the newer New England will become 
more truly democratic and better than was the older New Eng- 
land, our newer New England must attain to a larger measure of 
individual liberty than did the old. This can best be brought to 
pass, not by forgetting the work of the forefathers, but by look- 
ing unto the rock whence we were hewn. 

Louis C. Cornish. 



THE HOME MEADOWS. 

PARALLEL with the broad, elm-shaded main street of Hing- 
ham lies a stretch of salt marsh, which is one of the most 
picturesque features of this interesting old town. Ages ago 
the harbor, the green surfaces of which at low tide show us that 
the process of filling up is still going on, must have extended 
inland more than half a mile further than it does at present ; 
but now the tide-flow is restricted to a meandering .stream 
which winds among great fields of waving grass, after the 
fashion of the small, sluggish rivers of the English counties of 
Lincolnshire and Norfolk, from the borders of which our early 
settlers came ; and it was, possibly, the suggestion of the dear 
fen-country at home that made the pioneers choose the English 
name for this town in memory of the place of their birth, to 
which their hearts turned fondly in their lonely, struggling days. 

When the flood-gates at the harbor are shut, and a broad 
sheet of water stretches from bank to bank, one understands 
that all this shallow, marshy land must have risen slowly from 
the depths, — the product of the wash of the neighboring hills 
retained by floating marine vegetation, until, little by little, it 
became firm enough to afl'ord a lodging for the seeds of the 
marsh grasses which now cover it so luxuriantly during the 
dry summer months. 

In whichever of their changing phases the Hingham 
meadows choose to show themselves, they are always a delight 
to the eye, and afibrd pictures which every artist rejoices in, 
both for the wealth of color of the grass and bordering trees, 

(51) 



62 THE HOME MEADOWS. 

and the graceful lines of the wandering stream and its adjacent 
slopes. 

On the west the marsh is bounded by low wooded hills 
dotted with oaks and maples. There are miniature bays and 
capes, promontories and peninsulas along the edges ; and, from 
the time when the red oaks are tipped with warm color in the 
spring till they deepen in the late autumn into rich crimson and 
russet, there is a continual melting of one lovely tone into 
another upon these waving tree masses, with their undulating 
sky line, which is full of beauty. 

On the eastern shore lie fruit orchards, which in May are 
flushed with pink, or snowy with sheets of white blossoms, that 
contrast admirably with the tender young green of the lines of 
waving willows along the country road. The meadow has its 
exquisite youth, like a maiden, and in its early spring promise is 
suggestive of girlhood and hope and tenderness. There is a 
melting softness in its aspect when, under the blue skies flecked 
with round white clouds, it awakens from its brown winter sleep, 
and decks itself with delicate tints for its late May day. The 
stream is blue and shining, and reflects the earliest dawn ; the 
orchards are rosy ; the trees, a pale emerald-green ; the white 
gulls come flying in from the sea, calling to each other; and now 
and then a solitary heron stands solemnly on one leg and looks 
at his reflection in the water. The little houses at the harbor, 
which have all winter stood up in hard outline among the bare 
trees, now begin to hide amid shimmering foliage, which casts 
soft shadows upon their white and yellow walls. From the tall 
chimney of the power-house the smoke waves like a banner 
celebrating the coming of spring. 

Later, all these gay tints are merged in a rich luscious green 



THE HOME MEADOWS. 53 

of but slightly varied hue. Taller and taller grow the rank 
grasses as the stream sinks lower. The woods are in full, dark 
leaf; the apple blossoms have fallen; the little houses are almost 
hidden, and the frequent summer trains go shrieking across the 
lower end of the meadow, filling the air with rolling clouds of 
white and umber. 

Then comes Aug-ust, when the hues of the sedo;es bejjin to 
shade from green to yellow-brown in patches of rich, warm 
color ; and the meadow takes on a fresh glory. Late in the 
month come the mowers with their carts ; and the tall windrows 
fall in heavy heaps, while the usually still plain is alive with 
moving forms, swinging the sc}i;hes in rhythm. The loads are 
piled high upon the ricks, the horses labor over the soft surface, 
and the human interest of the scene adds a fresh charm to the 
lonely level stretches. After the crop is removed, there are 
rich hues of ochre and crimson upon the meadow, which 
harmonize with the grold and scarlet which begins to burn in the 
woodland. An autumn haze softens the landscape, and gives to 
it something mysterious and entrancing. Between the two 
loveliest aspects of the marshes — the promise of the spring and 
the ripe splendor of the autumn — one can hardly choose, each 
has so potent an attraction. 

Even in winter there is great beauty in the broad white 
plain, all snow and ice, like an arctic wilderness. Skaters come 
and go in merry groups over the flooded icy surface ; fishermen 
spearing for eels are seen working over holes in the ice ; the 
pale sky and the madder-tinted woods make a new combination 
of color in the kaleidoscope, so that there is always a pleasant 
picture for the eyes of those whose good fortune it is to 
command a view of this beautiful scene. 



54 THE HOME MEADOWS. 

The harbor lies north of the marshes ; and the stream 
empties into it through flood-gates, where it is utilized to turn a 
mill. From this direction, looking southward up the meadow, 
one sees its fine surface unbroken, till it is checked by the 
sudden rise of the land at the south to the plain where the 
central village stands. From the high ground at that end 
the view is most beautiful ; for the whole sinuous course of the 
stream lies mapped before the eye, the group of houses at the 
harbor becomes but a detail, and over and beyond them one sees 
the masts of shipping on the blue line of the sea, and at nightfall 
catches the flashing glimpses of Boston light glowing like a great 
star on the distant horizon, while the lights of passing steam- 
boats flash like fire-flies in the darkness. 

Long before the sun rises in the summer, one can see the 
pools in the meadow shining like an open eye, reflecting the 
coming dawn ; and the pale light lingers in its quiet reaches 
long after the rest of the landscape is plunged in shadow. 
Always its calm beauty has its message of quietness and peace 
to the thoughtful mind. The hurrying trains may break in for 
a moment upon its tranquil solitude with a suggestion of the 
anxious, hurried life outside from which it lies so remote, but 
these are but an incident in its continuous and abiding rest- 
fulness. 

Far from 

" The weariness, the fever, and the fret " 

of our troubled times this lovely scene lies in ever-changing 

beauty, unvexed by the restless men who come and go beside it. 

There is a meaning in it, something placid and comforting 

which imparts the blessing of quiet Nature to the anxious mind. 



THE HOME MEADOWS. 65 

" Over the level 
And streaming and shining on 
Silent river, 
Silvery willow, 

Slideth the gleam." 

Even so the light which emanates from the silent Hingham 
meadows, when all is dark around, seems to suggest the reflection 
of the light of heaven in the patient soul. 

Mary C. Robbins. 



A town has reason to be proud when she can claim as her 
children and grandchildren such men as John Hancock, Andrews 
Norton, Charles Eliot Norton, William Ware, Eichard Henry 
Stoddard, Levi Lincoln, Albert Fearing, Isaac Hinckley, and the 
three members of the Gay family, — Sidney Howard, Allan, and 
Walter Gay. Among the names of those who trace their ances- 
try to Hingham are Abraham Lincoln and Charles Sumner. 
Three of her citizens have held executive office in the Common- 
wealth — General Benjamin Lincoln, lieutenant-governor in 
1789 ; John A. Andrew, born in Maine, governor in 1861-2- 
3-4—5, and John D. Long, also born in Maine, governor in 
1880-1-2. 



DERBY ACADEMY. 

IN the latter part of the last century the establishment of schools 
and academies was much the fashion of the time. Their 
endowment was a popular means of devoting private funds to 
the general welfare for the promotion of higher education in 
New England. Some survive and flourish, some have waned, 
and some have disappeared altogether, unable to attract pupils 
in competition with the more ample public funds appropriated 
to the support of free high schools. It was during the period 
when schools were being founded quite frequently in New Eng- 
land that Mrs. Sarah Derby decided to devote a considerable 
portion of the property acquired from her first husband, Dr. 
Ezekiel Hersey, a distinguished physician in his native town of 
Hingham, to the establishment of a school. She also was a 
native of Hingham, and was born April 18, 1714. Her portrait 
hangs on the wall of the school. 

In 1784 Madam Derby conveyed to ten trustees the land 
upon which the academy building stands, to be used for such a 
purpose after her death ; but for the more efiectual execution of 
their trust, and in accordance with the terms of that trust, the 
said trustees obtained from the General Court an Act of Incor- 
poration of the "Derby School " Nov. 11, 1784. 

Madam Derby died June 17, 1790. She made liberal pro- 
visions in her will for the benefit of the school ; and it was 
opened April 5, 1791. 

The Massachusetts policy of granting lands in Maine to 
academies made it for the pecuniary advantage of the " school " 

(56) 



DERBY ACADEMY. 67 

to be an incorporated "academy;" and on June 17, 1797, the 
" Derby School " was erected into an academy by the name of 
"Derby Academy" by an act of the General Court. 

From the date of the opening of the school in 1791 until 
the present time it has continued to furnish instruction to such 
pupils as have " resorted to it " in varying numbers. At first 
the male and female pupils were taught separately in separate 
rooms, — the boys by a preceptor and the girls by a preceptress ; 
but since 1849, partially, and since 1852, wholly, the boys and 
girls have been taught together. 

The building which was upon the land at the time of Madam 
Derby's death was used for school purposes until 1818, when 
the present building was erected. 

In accordance with the provisions of Madam Derby's will 
a sermon, known as the " Derby Lecture," is preached annually 
to the scholars of the academy. For many years Lecture Day 
was a notable occasion. The girls in white dresses and the boys 
in white trousers formed a procession, headed by a band of 
music, and marched from the academy to the New North Church. 
The way was lined with spectators and the church filled. 

The funds of the academy amount to about $30,000. 

Several attempts were made b}'' the town and the trustees, 
before the establishment of a public high school in Hingham, to 
formulate some plan by which the academy might serve the pur- 
poses of a high school, as required by the laws of the Common- 
wealth ; but no satisfactory conclusions were arrived at. The 
long delay of the town in establishing a high school, which was 
opened in 1872, caused this academy to be the school where, up 
to that time, almost every boy who was fitted for college in 
Hinffham received much of his classical education, and where 



58 DERBY ACADEMY. 

nearly all who received any other education than the common 
schools could give them obtained it. Many a generation will 
owe its intellectual advancement to the seed sown in the minds 
of its ancestors within the walls of Derby Academy. 

Last year the old academy was renovated with new floors 
and desks and paint, its fireplaces opened, and its walls colored. 
It is now a most attractive type of the quaint antique buildings 
in town. 

Francis H. Lincoln. 



In the public library at Hingham Centre are some interesting 
and valuable collections, including a general collection of the 
minerals of the world, a paleontological collection, and a geologi- 
cal collection comprising specimens of all the rocks of Hingham. 
These were the gift of the late Thomas T. Bouve, whose memory 
Hingham is proud to cherish. 



SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM. 

HAVING boarded in Hingham during the two or three pre- 
vious summers I built my house there in 1869 and have 
lived there ever since. During that time I have seen it change 
from an almost purely New England village into a cosmopolitan 
community. There was then no Catholic or Episcopal church. 
The foreign born were few — mostly thrifty hard-working Irish- 
men who had been driven from their native isle during the pre- 
vious twenty years by the famine and the oppression which had 
cursed it — men of strong natural parts who took to the soil, but 
not in that generation to politics. 

In the town-meetings the citizens who led and did the talking 
were all of the original New England stock. To-day the children 
and grandchildren of the immigrants from Erin, with the natural 
fluency of speech of their race, are at the front, trained in our 
schools, furnishing a majority of our school children, active in 
all the professions and indoor businesses, prominent in political 
organization and representation, and spokesmen at the town meet- 
ing. The Catholic is the only crowded church attendance in town. 
Of late in one quarter of the village there is a numerous colony 
of Italians, doing the rough work which the Irishmen did fifty 
years ago, and they also are in evidence in the lighter indoor 
trades and shop keeping. There are families of German, Scandi- 
navian, and other nationalities. 

The man who can trace his ancestry back to the early settlers 
has no longer the prestige on which he used to pride himself. In 
the old days anybody who came from outside the town border was 

(59) 



60 SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM. 

at a disadvantage. When I built my house, desiring to patronize 
home institutions, I went to the local insurance company for 
insurance. The dignified old gentleman, a little deaf, who was 
its secretary and who made me use a slate and pencil, though I 
felt sure he could have heard what I said, immediately turned me 
down, alleging that my house was too remote. In fact it is 
within five minutes walk of the hotel, churches, railroad station 
and the shops. I could see at once that he regarded me as a 
young snipper-snapper and interloper with a red necktie and not 
worthy of admission into the sacred circle. A story is told of a 
citizen who in those days said of another " he a Hingham man ! 
Why, I can remember when his grandfather moved into this 
town." 

In 1869 there was of course the railroad as far only as 
Cohasset on one side and Boston on the other. But the time- 
honored passage to the city was by the steamboat line. It had 
been in operation for nearly half a century, and prior to that time 
the packet. The stage coach was of even remoter date. To-day 
stage coach, packet, and steamboat are all things of the past. 
Even the steamboat wharf, once a lively scene, is turned into a 
private park, rarely a foot treading on its green turf. In my 
early residence here, there were two steamboat lines, each with 
several boats. At one time there was a very lively competition 
between them. Fares were reduced ; they raced ; doubts about 
each others boilers were expressed, and partisanship was keen. 
Everybody went " on the boat." And a very delightful trip to 
and from Boston it was — an hour or more of smooth water, now 
and then enveloped in a precarious fog, a cool refreshing breeze, 
picturesque headlands, islands, lighthouses and forts in the harbor, 
steamers and sailing-vessels passed or met with sonorous whistles. 



SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM. 61 

and always a cheery company of permanent or summer residents, 
men on business bound, women shopping, school children, all 
gathered in their varied costumes on the decks and telling stories, 
discussing politics, singing, smoking or what not. It was a daily 
social neighborly commingling and one of the characteristic features 
of Hingham life. We had some quaint characters among us then 
whose shrewd and humorous sayings became household words. 
All this has gone. 

Indeed Hingham harbor to-day suggests nothing of its 
ancient glory and activity. Before the days of railroads it had its 
packets and sloops and was a commercial depot of supplies which 
were thence distributed from it into the interior Plymouth County 
towns. The " Cove," as it was and is still called, was alive with 
ship stores, sail lofts, fish houses, shops now converted into 
tenements, and it was the source of many a comfortable fortune. 
The fishing industry was greater at one time than that of 
Gloucester, some seventy vessels, captained and manned by 
Hingham men, engaged in it. I saw the last of the schooners 
lie rotting on the flats in front of my house forty years ago. In 
place of this industry have come the pleasure boats and small 
yachts, which dot the bay, if the tide is in, with their white sails 
on summer afternoons. A pretty yacht club house has taken the 
place of a fish house. 

On the top of Old Colony Hill was the " Old Colony House," 
a spacious hotel commanding a magnificent view and filled with 
summer guests who enlivened its broad piazzas with their group- 
ings and the highways with their carriages. It was burnt in the 
seventies and has never been rebuilt. There was no access, 
except by the road through Rocky Nook, to Nantasket Beach. 
Its present huddle of cottages and resorts and bath-houses and 



62 SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM. 

shows was not then even a dream. There were only the cliffs 
and the beach and the great ocean expanse, with but a residence 
or two, and one great summer hotel. Then it was rest ; now it is 
hubbub. 

At Crow Point thirty years ago no building except a sheepcot 
was on that charming stretch of shore, sightly hills rising from 
the beach and affording lovely residential sites. A few years 
later Mr. Samuel Downer, of Dorchester, a man of ample means 
and generous public spirit, saw its capabilities, bought it and at 
once transformed it into an attractive summer resort. His pur- 
pose was not one of profit but of providing within easy access 
from Boston a place where its citizens, having a pleasant steam- 
boat trip down the harbor, could have playgrounds, picnics, 
amusements and rest. He instituted extensive clambake houses, 
large airy dance halls, swings, parkways, woodsy retreats, a fine 
restaurant, a summer hotel on the beach. Sometimes on a 
Sunday he preached a sermon. He called his recreation ground 
Melville Gardens and the whole place Downer Landing, a name, 
however, which has now given way to the original and much 
better old name of Crow Point. Steamboats made frequent trips, 
and for years it was a scene of merry and brilliant concourse, 
the music of the band floating out over the sea and shore. Every 
step was taken for good order and the absence of an}i;hing like 
riot or intoxication. 

Since Mr. Downer's death, all this public provision has 
been abandoned. All the halls and recreation buildings have 
been taken down, and the whole Point is now devoted to private 
residences, with their lovely view of sea and shore, their golf 
grounds and pretty gardens. It is a delightful residential spot. 

Referring to changes in names, the most striking instance of 



SOME CHANGES IX HINGHAM. 63 

such a chansre is the chancre in the name of the town itself. Its 
original name in 1633 was either Bear Cove derived from the 
presence at that time of some native bruin or more probably 
Bare Cove from the bareness of the harbor flats at low tide. The 
change was made Sept. 2, 1635, by the General Court in the 
followino; words : " The name of Bare Cove is changed and here- 
after to be called Hingham," — probably the shortest act of muni- 
cipal incorporation in the annals of Massachusetts, if not of the 
world. 

The great event each fall used to be the agricultural fair. 
All the summer residents and the whole town w^ere in attendance 
and crowds from the surrounding country. It lasted two days. 
A hundred yoke of oxen in line were an imposing array. 
To-day there is probably not even a steer within our borders. 
The fair grounds were picturesque with booths and shows and 
ploughing matches and games and streamers and costumes. The 
school children had a holiday and were out in force. On the 
second day a procession was formed, led by the Hingham brass 
band, now extinct, not even a ghost of its clarion or rubadub 
hovering over the spot. A chief marshal, a new one every year 
so that the honor might go round, mounted and glorious, gave 
orders that nobody heeded. At the front were the venerable 
Albert Fearing, founder and president of the society, Solomon 
Lincoln, Esq., its secretary and Hingham's historian, the select- 
men and magnates of the municipality, and the invited guests, chief 
among whom was of course the governor of the Commonwealth, 
with sometimes members of his bedizened stafi", and the orators 
of the occasion, and then the dinner ticket holding citizens with 
their wives. Eound the great hall, now converted into the town 
house, the procession moved. Then between rows of onlookers 



64 SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM. 

it marched into the spacious dining-room. There a bounteous 
rural dinner was spread. Upon a raised dais sat the elect, 
wliile on the floor every seat at the tables was taken and the room 
filled with the general public. Dr. Loring, " a fine figure of a 
man," eloquent and pleasing, was a frequent speaker, as was 
always Judge Thomas Kussell, who sang the praises of the 
Pilgrim fathers and of his native county of Plymouth. The 
governor gave the usual platitudinous compliments. Other visit- 
ing speakers cracked the old chestnuts, which were received with 
as hearty applause as if they were brand new, and rang the 
chanofes on General Lincoln and Governor Andrew as if we had 
never before heard their praises, till their names became almost 
as tiresome to us as that of Aristides the Just to the wearied 
Athenian. 

All that scene is over and gone. Indeed few of the distinc- 
tive peculiarities that then marked the town remain. Having 
then few factory industries, and those now abandoned, its 
interests are now largely linked with the metropolis of Boston, 
a large number of our citizens doing business there, going to it 
in the morning and returning at night. Fifty years ago there 
were distinct traces of the bitter ancient feud, really political and 
social and not in any way religious or theological, which led to 
the break in the old meeting-house society and the institution of 
the New North Society in 1806. But to-day it is obliterated, 
and the two streams flow in complete harmony, only delighted 
with each others placid current. 

Half a century ago you were conscious of a sort of local 
clannish separation between sections of the town. Broad Bridge 
at the railroad station, then further south in succession, Little 
Plain, Great Plain, Liberty Plain. But now even these names 



SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM. 65 

are familiar only to the older inhabitants. The electric railway- 
has tied all parts together. Especially of late years, with the 
easy connection now of all with quick access to Boston, the 
vacant building spots have been built upon and the old farm 
homes bought and renovated by incomers from the city who have 
thus found more delightful and less expensive residence than 
there. The town has thus become a sort of honeymoon paradise 
for newly-married couples who set up their tents among us. In 
our church attendance, our social meetings, our clubs, our politi- 
cal and local rallies I find a minglino; of faces that are recent 
and unfamiliar. One result of all this is an increasing coa- 
lescence of all members of our community, a democratic spirit in 
which all come together, a degree of common feeling and 
interest and an absence of partisan and social distinctions (yet 
with entire freedom and often earnest individual expression of 
difierences of opinion), which happily more and more charac- 
terize Hingham. Neighborhood good nature and helpfulness 
prevail. 

Our recent and public-spirited Village Improvement Society 
is doing admirable work in bettering and beautifying the aspect 
of the town and preserving its ancient charm. And a chime of 
bells, fitly connected with the old meeting-house burying-ground, 
will soon from a monumental tower ring back and in the old, 
without rino-ino; out the new. 

In short, it is all a part of the expansion that is going on all 
over our Commonwealth. It is the transition from limited and 
localized life to cosmopolitan enlargement. The facile faucet 
has supplanted the pump and the half-the-time dry well, and now 
floods us with pure water from the border of the metropolitan 



66 SOME CHANGES IN H INGHAM. 

district. Instead of the malodorous kerosene lamp the electric 
light illumines our houses and streets with a current from the 
neighboring town. The ubiquitous automobile is monarch of 
the highway. Indeed, we are substantially a part of the met- 
ropolitan district. Already the tentacles of Boston are feeling 
their way to grip us and make us one of its suburbs. 

But Hingham individuality is by no means gone. Where 
else could the illustrious Independent Corps of Cadets, surpassed 
only by our own admirable Co. K, exhibit their white uniforms or 
pitch their white tents better than on the field on the border of our 
bay over which their music sounds ; or where could the crowds 
they attract find so charming a background for their gala attire 
and fine equipage? Where else are there two such houses of 
religious worship as the " Old Meeting House," built in 1681, 
the oldest in the country, quaint and simple, our Puritan pride, 
and the " New North," of which Bui finch was the architect, with 
its original pews of clear broad pine, its wealth of light and 
spacings, and its architectural perfection inside and outside, and 
in which Jotham Burrell was sexton and rang the bell for sixty 
years — the longest term of that kind of service in town? Where 
else can you turn from the shore of the inflowing sea, around 
which are charming residences ancient and modern, and, driving 
up the broad main street overshadowed with the foliage of noble 
elms, find yourself almost at once in the delight of old rural 
New England, the way further on broadening to a width of two 
hundred feet, bordered by quiet comfortable homes and low- 
roofed farm-houses, a church steeple overtopping the scene, and 
then, stretching back of these, soft fields and woods and hillsides 
and the meadow through which runs a lazy brook, so that apace 



SOME CHANGES IN HINGHAM. 67 

you feel yourself far away from the bustling world and that 
around you is the almost still untouched paradise of the old 
Puritan country life ? 
Not all is changed. 

John D. Long. 



It was customary in many New England towns, until com- 
paratively modern times, to pay the minister in produce rather 
than in cash. The schedules thus made out are often interesting 
reading. One such, dating back to the last century, is here 
reproduced. 

Articles which Mr. Wares Salary was Voted to be estimated on, viz. : 

600 lb. Ox Beef at 20/ £6 

400 lb. Pork at /4 6 13 8 

400 lb. Fresh or small meat at /2i 4 3 4 

20 Cords Oak Wood at 12/ 12 

10 Barrels Cyder at 6/ 3 

100 lb. Candles at /8 3 6 8 

160 lb. Butter (Home made) at /8 5 

200 lb. Sugar at 48/ 4 16 

15 Galls. Molasses at 1/9 16 3 

2 Bis. Flom- at 30/ 3 

4 Tons English Hay for Cow and Horse at 48/ 9 12 

Keeping a Cow & Horse in the Summer 4 4 

150 lb. Cheese a.t /^h 2 16 3 

46 Bushls. Home grown Corn at 4/ 9 

20 do., Rye do., do. at 4/ 400 

House Rent near the Meeting House 12 

Maids Wages by the year 668 

for Cloathing, Superfine Broadcloth to be estimated on at 30/ 

per yard 38 16 2 

£135 



HINGHAM FARMS. 

(Reprinted in part from the Atlantic Monthly by permission of Houghton 

Mifflin ^ Co.) 

WHEEE, then, should a man live? I will make answer 
only for myself, and say, Here in Hingham, right where 
I am, for here the sky is round and large, the evening and the 
Sunday silences are deep, the dooryards are wide, the houses are 
single, and the neighborhood ambitions are good kitchen gardens, 
good gossip, fancy chickens, and clean paint. 

The ideal home depends very much, of course, on the home 
you had as a child, but I can think of nothing so ideally home- 
like as a farm, — an ideal farm, ample, bountiful, peaceful, with 
the smell of apples coming up from the cellar, and the fragrance 
of herbs and broom-corn haunting store-room and attic. 

The day is past when every man's home can be his farm, 
dream as every man may of sometime having such a home ; but 
the day has just arrived when every man's home can be his 
garden and chicken-pen and dooryard, with room and quiet and 
trees. 

The day has come, for the means are at hand, when life, 
despite its present centralization, can be more spread out, 
roomier, simpler, healthier, more nearly normal, because lived 
nearer to the soil. It is time that every American home was 
built in the open country, for there is plenty of land — land in 
my immediate neighborhood for a hundred homes where children 
can romp, and your neighbor's hens, too, and the inter-neighbor- 
hood peace brood undisturbed. And such a neighborhood need 

(fi8) 



BIN GUAM FARMS, 69 

not be either the howling wilderness, where the fox still yaps, or 
the semi-submerged suburban village, where every house has its 
Window-in-Thrums. 

Though to my city friends I seem somewhat remote and 
incontiguous, still I am not dissevered and dispersed from my 
kind, for I am only twenty miles from Boston Common, and as 
I write I hear the lowing of a neighbor's cows, the voices of his 
children as they play along the brook below, and off among the 
fifteen square miles of tree-tops that fill my front yard, I see 
two village spires. I often look at those spires, and as often 
think of the many sweet trees that wave between me and the 
tapering steeples, where they look up to worship toward the 
sky, and look down to scowl across the street. 

Any lover of the city could live as far out as this ; could 
live here and work there. I have no quarrel with the city as a 
place to work in. Cities are as necessary as w^heat-fields and as 
lovely, too — from twenty miles away, or from Westminster 
Bridge at daybreak. The city is as a head to the body, the 
nervous centre where the multitudinous sensations are organized 
and directed, where the multitudinous and inter-related interests 
of the round world are directed. The city is necessary ; city 
work is necessary ; but less and less is city living necessary. 

Let a man work where he will, or must ; let him live where 
only the whole man can live — in a house of his own, in a yard 
of his own, with something green and growing to cultivate, 
something alive and responsive to take care of; and let it be out 
under the sky of his birthright, in a quiet where he can hear the 
wind among the leaves, and the wild geese as they lionh high 
overhead in the night to remind him that the seasons have 
changed, that winter is following down their flying wedge. 



70 HINGHAM FARMS. 

As animals (and we are entirely animal) we are as far under 
the dominion of nature as any ragweed or woodchuck. But we 
are entirely human, too, and have a human need of nature, that 
is, a spiritual need, which is no less real than the physical. We 
die by the million yearly for lack of sunshine and pure air ; and 
who knows how much of our moral ill-health might be traced to 
our lack of contact with the healing, rectifying soul of woods 
and skies? 

A man needs to see the stars every night that the sky is 
clear. Turning down his own small 'lamp, he should step out 
into the night to see the pole star where he burns or " the Pleiads 
risino; throujrh the mellow shade." 

One cannot live among the Pleiads ; one cannot even see 
them half of the time ; and one must spend part of one's time in 
the mill. Yet never to look for the Pleiads, or to know which 
way to look, is to spend, not part, but all of one's time in the 
mill. 

So now, when a reasonable day's work is done, I turn home- 
ward to the farm ; and these early autumn nights I hang the 
lantern high in the stable, while four shining faces gather round 
on upturned buckets behind the cow. The lantern flickers, the 
milk foams, the stories flow — "Bucksy" stories of the noble 
red man ; stories of Arthur and the Table Eound, of Guyon and 
Britomart, and the heroes of old ; and marvelous stories of that 
greatest hero of them all — their father, far away yonder when 
he was a boy, when there were so many interesting things to do, 
and such fun doing them ! 

Dallas Lore Sharp. 



SOME HINGHAM GARDENS. 




T_T INGHAM people all love 



their gardens, and devote 
much attention to them, and 
however small the enclosure in 
front of the houses, it is almost 
sure to be enlivened by gay beds 
of bloom, and to show evidence 
of loving care. The traditional 
old-fashioned flowers have the 
preference, and some of the 
shrubs and perennials we like to 
think of as descending from old 
Colonial ancestors. 

Near the station the well 
kept garden of INIrs. Soule has 
always charmed the eye, and 
those on the main street of Mrs. 
Thaxter, Mr. Morris F. Whiton, Mrs, Spooner, and Mrs. 
Martin Hayes, with that of the late Frederick Guild, Esq., 
attract attention to their summer blaze of brilliant flowers, 
always carefully tended. At South Hingham the gardens of 
Mr. Henry W. Gushing and Mr. Pridee are most attractive. 
The rambling old garden of Mrs. Robbins' at Overlea used to 
have a charm of its own, inherited from generations of Cushings, 
but now that the owner is absent, and it is cared for only by 
tenants, it is no longer the same, though its box arbor of over 

(71) 









72 SOME HINGHAM GARDENS. 

:i hundred years' growth, its masses of purple and Persian lilacs and 
syringas, its tall white lilac trees, its blossoming shrubberies, and 
its grand old elms shading the highway, give it an air of 
ancient occupation, without any pretension to careful arrange- 
ment. 

At Hingham Centre, on the brow of the hill, with a fine dis- 
tant view from it of the salt meadows is the beautiful garden 
of Mrs. Hatch ; and the cheery beds of Mr. Ebed L. Eipley and 
Mr. Pratt, and other lovers of flowers, also adorn that part of the 
town. 

The really large gardens are not visible from the street, but 
have variety and charm. 

Mrs. John D. Long- in a sunken hollow at Windholm has a 
garden overlooked by upper slopes, which is the work of only 
a few years, but is already so developed that an arid pasture has 
been charmingly transformed into a picturesque scene. Its dis- 
tinction is in its wide spaces, its shrubs and flowers not com- 
pacted into close borders but artistically adapted to the site and 
making a varied and unconfined parterre of clambering vines and 
intermingled colors. A path leads to a sundial ; and there are 
many rustic arrangements of benches and trellises made by the 
energetic ex-Governor's own hands. The efiect is open and 
inartificial. 

Mrs. Cornish has planted her garden at "Ye old ordinary," 
with many old-time flowers to preserve the Colonial traditions 
of the venerable homestead. 

At the Bouve place, at Indian Hollow, is a veritable arbore- 
tum planted by the late owner, where specimens of every tree 
that will grow in New England are still to be seen. Formerly 
it had a pleasant flower-garden which is not now kept up. 




GARDEN OF MISS MARY P. BARNES. 




PART OF THE BREWER GARDEN — WORLD'S END. 



SOME HINGHAM GARDENS. 73 

There is a spacious garden belonging to Mr. Charles B. 
Barnes near his house overlooking the harbor, where straight 
walks edged with box brought from the old Page garden in 
Salem lead between borders full of sweet familiar flowers of an 
earlier day. A path, along the crest of the hill, overlooks a 
broad meadow ; venerable apple trees of great age shade some 
portions of the grounds, and one strolls under their interlacing 
boughs through which the sunlight flickers. This garden is a 
survival of a past age, for the older of the two houses on the place 
is more than two hundred and twenty years old, and the ancient 
oaks in the grounds, once a part of the forest primeval, speak 
of a forgotten day. 

The long straight walk through the center of the garden 
has a herbaceous border with stately hollyhocks and tall lark- 
spurs at the back and smaller flowers in front, so that all summer 
there is a succession of flowers from the early snowdrops and lilies- 
of-the-valley, to the blaze of asters in the late autumn ; and no new- 
fangled blossoms are permitted to mar the quaint simplicity of 
the beds. Under a branch of one of the beautiful old apple trees, 
full of rosy buds in early June, are a bench and a table where 
afternoon tea is served ; and from the sunny walks, arched here 
and there with climbing roses, is a wide view of Hingham 
harbor and its bordering shores. 

The kitchen-garden, below the hill, is also gay with beds of 
annuals, after the Engjlish fashion of comfortinir the vejretables 
with dashes of bloom. 

A remarkable feature of the Barnes n-arden is a huce wis- 
taria which wholly covers one side of the stable and drapes an 
old arbor. This vine is of great age, with a stem which well 
might be called a trunk. 



74 



SOME HINGHAM GARDENS. 




GROUP OF BOX TREES ON MATTHEW GUSHING HOMESTEAD — 250 YEARS OLD. 



Adjoining these grounds is the garden of Mrs. Charles 
Blake, which yields innumerable flowers, and at Mrs. Charles 
Mason's on Martin's Lane is to be seen a skilfully arranged 
grouping of shrubs and trees planned by a landscape gardener, 
with a small flower garden between the house and the river. 

The largest garden in Hingham is that of Miss Brewer and 
Mrs. Blackmar at Martin's Lane, and there are few of the towns- 
people who have not shared in its generous profusion freely 
dispensed by the kindly owners. 



SOME H INGHAM GARDENS. 76 

This secluded garden lies at the side of and behind the 
house, and has for a background the blue waters of the harbor 
and the distant islands of Massachusetts Bay. There are huge 
thickets of many colored rhododendrons, a terrace purple with 
all varieties of German and French irises, flowering shrubs in 
great numbers which are a joy, paths bordered with glowing 
peonies, and others closely set with roses and other flowers. 
The fifty years' growth of this garden is manifest in the great 
size of the shrubs, which flourish in the rich soil and sea air. 

There is one sheltered nook, encircled with trees which 
keep oflf the fierce salt winds, where are beds of heliotrope and 
pansies, of asters and marigolds, and many other annuals, a 
carpet of brilliant color, from which unending nosegays can be 
made ; where the earliest blossoms venture forth, and the latest 
linger in the warm shelter of the surrounding trees ; a quaint 
sunny spot, my lady's garden, the very place for a quiet stroll, 
with nothing to distract attention from the flowers. Should one 
wish to go down to the harbor, a path overhung with apple 
trees leads through the orchard to the grassy border of the bay. 

South of the house is a charming glade, where some weep- 
ing beeches cast their shadows on the green turf. On one side 
is a rocky knoll, crowned with trees, at its foot a grape-vine 
clambering over rocks and trellis ; and on the other, a spacious 
border with tall rhododendrons in the rear, and in front of them 
flaming azaleas, a splendid sight in June, while in the foreground 
are stately many-hued Japanese irises in great variety. 

Along the southern end of the house is a narrow border 
ablaze in the autumn with hardy chrysanthemums, which linger 
in that warm shelter until late in November, prolonging the 
summer with their rich hues of crimson and 2:old. 



76 SOME RING HAM GARDENS. 

Then there are the charming gardens and shrubberies of 
Mrs. Edwin A. Hills and Mrs. Frederick A. Turner. All this 
stretch of pretty homes is a paradise. 

On the State road to Quincy is the large Bradley estate, 
lying on both sides of the highway. 

The planting of the hill has been done within twenty-five 
years by skilled landscape gardeners ; the groups of trees are 
admirably disposed, and have made, under careful cultivation a 
surprising growth. 

The western part of the place belongs to Miss Bradley, and 
the grounds and entrance are very efiective, with their brilliant 
borders and shrubs, and great masses of evergreens. A winding 
path, sheltered from view, leads down from the hill, through the 
pines of the park, behind the house to the kitchen gardens and 
greenhouses on the other side of Thaxter Street. Interspersed 
with laurel and rhododendrons, a pond girdled with trees mirrors 
the blue sky, and all about it are planted irises and other water 
plants, while graceful willows dip their branches in the water, 
and the pleasant walk winds along the border among the native 
flowers and bracken. At one end is a wild and charming^ 
ramble at the base of a sloping hill, overrun with blueberry 
bushes, which make a variegated tapestry when touched with 
autumn's vivid brush. Under the trees the laurels in June are 
rosy with their exquisite unfolding cups ; and the masses of rho- 
dodendrons shade from red to purple. 

On the hill near the house is a dainty enclosed plaisance, the 
special care of the owner, M^ho allows no alien hand to touch it. 
It is protected at each end by a concrete wall, with a stepped 
cornice, hung with fragrant honeysuckle, wistarias and pink 




MISS BRADLEY S GARDEN. 




APPLE TKtta ON luT uf bAMUEL, ANCESTOR OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



SQME HINGHAU GARDENS. 77 

rambler roses, from the west side of which a fountain trickles 
into a shell-like basin. 

Old apple trees, in the center of the enclosure form a canopy 
for the tea-table, and a broad herbaceous border runs on three 
sides of this garden, backed on the south by a large grape-vine, 
and on the north by tall spruce trees. 

The beds in the center are filled with annuals in harmonious 
coloring, and this sheltered nook forms a pleasant out-of-door 
parlor for a summer day, flushing in the early season with apple- 
blooms into a rosy bower, always easily accessible and much 
enjoyed. 

Adjoining it is Mrs. Peter Bradley's rose garden, with its 
wealth of rare specimens, and near by are her greenhouses with 
their beautiful supply of flowers for the cold season. 

Many other gardens there are in the town, cosy and shel- 
tered, some hidden from view, and others in plain sight, where 
the old favorites smile and shed their sweet perfume. Some of 
these, like the dooryard of the General Lincoln homestead, must 
perhaps have had many of the same old-fashioned flowers growino- 
in them for two hundred and seventy-five years. One likes to 
think of this garland of perpetually renewed blossoms binding the 
old Colonial days of 1635 to these of the twentieth century in a 
chain of bloom. 

Dear Hingham gardens, tended for all these years by the 
hands of gentle women, long may they gladden the eyes of the 
wayfarer along these elm-arched highways ! 

Mart C. Robbins. 




THE NEGRO GALLERIES. 

IN many of our New England towns, 
daring the early days, slavery existed on 
a very small scale, and in its least objectionable 
form, and in Hingham there were a few families with whom 
before the Revolutionary War slave-holding was the inherited 
custom. The accompanying sketch shows the provision made 
in one of our churches for the attendance of colored people at 
Sunday service. 

The New North Church was built in 1806. At this time 
there was still a number of families having colored servants, 
though no longer slaves. That these might " go to meeting" on 
Sunday, and still, as the inferior class, be remote from the other 
church people, two additional galleries were built to provide 
sittings for them. These two galleries were fitted into the rear 

(78) 



THE NEGRO GALLERIES. 79 

upper corners of the church, just above and on either side of the 
choir-loft. In that on the right sat the men, in that on the left 
the women. And for some thirty years a gradually diminishing 
number of this class occupied their private boxes. Certainly, 
they held the "high seats in the synagogue." 

By 1830 the men's gallery had become practically unoccu- 
pied, while in the women's there was only one regular attendant. 
This girl, thus isolated, became an object of amusement to the 
boys of the church, — so much so that one good lady in the con- 
gregation rather than have her thus exposed gave her a sitting by 
her own side in a pew on the floor. And in that pew she sat year 
after year, a respected and cared-for member of the congregation, 
long after her benefactress had gone to the grave and till, o-ray 
and old and feeble, she joined her there. 

The spirit of protest was thus growing strong among many 
of the parish against this custom of their fathers ; and it is worthy 
of notice in this connection that the people of the New North 
Church, together with those of the South Parish Church, were 
among the few congregations ready to give to Theodore Parker, 
Abolitionist and Heretic, a welcome to their pulpits. Finally, 
about the year 1840, Rev. Oliver Stearns, the newly settled min- 
ister, being himself of strong anti-slavery spirit, urged the feeling 
of the parish into action, and brought about the occasion for 
abolishing the custom. One Sunday he preached a vigorous 
sermon on the subject. There was some bitterness, and some 
withdrawal from the congregation. But the last occupant of 
these galleries had, as above stated, taken her seat with the rest 
of the congregation on the floor of the house ; and till her death 
sat there a regular attendant at Sunday service. 



80 THE NEGRO GALLERIES. 

To-day one particularly notices in these galleries their dec- 
orative value to the church, yet they have their peculiar historic 
interest as the relic of an early New England custom. 

Charles H. Porter. 



Under the big elm at the foot of the Academy Hill is a 
quaint old house, in the basement of which there once lived an 
Acadian family brought here after the Nova Scotia expedition of 
1755. Others of these poor French exiles were lodged in the 
old Hersey house on Summer Street, and a few lived at West 
Hino-ham. 

In 1792 Jeremiah Lincoln and Moses Whiton were appointed 
by the First Parish " to keep the porch of the meeting-house from 
being needlessly encumbered with women on the Sabbath." 

The French oiEcers quartered here in the War of 1812 took 
home with them, as souvenirs of their stay, written lists of the 
pretty girls in Hingham. Photographs were then unknown, and 
the anxiety of our great-grandmothers to be enrolled on such a 
list may be easily understood. Doubtless these bits of paper 
puzzled many a French matron in after years, and perhaps a few 
of them are still in existence, treasured as meaningless but 
curious relics. 

In the old days the whipping-post stood near Thaxter's 
Bridge, which crosses the town brook west of the station. 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 




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H INGHAM is justly proud of its 
ancient dwellings, many of which 
have been protected from ruin by the 
pious care of the descendants of those 
who built them over two centuries ago. 
It is rare in our new country to find a family 
living for two hundred and fifty years under the roof- 
tree of the early settlers, but more than one home- 
stead in this interesting and typical town has a record 
of two centuries and a half of continuous family 
occupation. "^Yhile the original structure of these very old houses 
is in some cases little more than a wing to the present building, 
which has been enlarged as domestic purposes required, there 
are some really excellent dwellings built in the middle of the 
eighteenth century which are of a type distinctive of the period. 
These two-story houses have a large chimney in the centre, 
surrounded by an open space to which there is sometimes access 
by a special door. This is presumably for safety from fire, as 
the bricks were laid up with clay instead of mortar, and conse- 
quently an air-space became imperative. The timbers are of 
oak and very heavy ; the rooms low studded, sometimes not 
more than seven feet hio;h, with a great beam or summer-tree 
visible below the plastering, which, by the way, is probably a 
modern addition. Generally, the cellar is only under one 
portion of the house, the foundations of the greater part of it 
being laid on top of the ground. 

(81) 



82 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

The houses are entered by a door in the middle, which leads 
into a small entry-way, whence a narrow staircase, with a land- 
ing and turn, leads to the upper front rooms. Sometimes 
another stairway in the rear gives access to the back second 
story ; and, occasionally, when the addition of new rooms has 
made it necessary, still other ladder-like stairways have been 
added, one house having as many as five. On either side of the 
front door is a large room, sometimes seventeen or eighteen feet 
square, with a wide fire-place. These rooms are often wholly 
wainscoted or have high dadoes of wood surmounted by a chair- 
rail. The rear rooms had a slanting roof, which sloped from the 
high roof-tree to the one-story ell ; but this has now sometimes 
given place to a modern construction at the back of the house. 
Many of the outside doors keep their brass thumb-latches and 
knockers, and in some of the humbler cottages the old-fashioned 
leathern latch-string to lift the rouo;h wooden latches of the 
inside doors may still be seen. The windows have wooden 
shutters within ; and the outside blinds on some of the more 
ancient dwellings are constructed in one piece with very broad 
slats. 

The Thaxter Mansion, — Some of the handsomest of these 
homesteads have been destroyed, but their fame is still fresh in 
the village memory. One of them, the Thaxter Mansion on 
North Street, which occupied the site of the present Roman 
Catholic Church, was removed in 1864. It was a fine old 
colonial mansion, with tapestried walls, broad, tiled fireplaces 
and decorated door-panels. The tapestries were brought from 
England by Samuel Thaxter, a son of Col. Samuel Thaxter, who 
was a classmate of Dr. Gay. Mr. Thaxter's widow afterward 






'^^^«£b«<. 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 83 

married the Rev. John Hancock, of Braintree, and was the 
mother of the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. 

In a blind passage in this house, to which a secret door gave 
access, Tories from Marshfield were concealed during a search 
made for them by the Committee of Safety. From this point 
they were later successfully smuggled to Boston. 

Thomas Thaxter, the first of this name in Ilingham, bought 
this house and land in 1652. It was occupied by Thaxters in a 
direct line for five generations. The last of the name to live in 
it was Major Samuel Thaxter. He was an officer in the French 
and Indian Wars, and was present at the massacre of Fort 
William Henry, when, having been captured by the Indians and 
tied to a tree, he appealed for protection to two French officers 
passing by. Pulling out his commission from the pocket of his 
leather breeches, he said, " Is this the way you treat commis- 
sioned officers?" AVliereupon they unloosed him, and let him 
go. Pie made his way during the night to Fort Edward, where 
he arrived with feet torn and bleeding. Meantime at home he was 
reported dead by a fellow townsman who had also escaped, and 
Dr. Gay preached his funeral sermon. When Major Thaxter 
finally arrived in Hingham, he met Mr. Caleb Bates, who was 
driving home his cows. "Why, Major," cried Mr. Bates, in 
astonishment, "we have just buried you!" Major Thaxter's 
liquor-case, punch-powl, knee-buckles, leather breeches, and the 
compass which guided him through the trackless Canadian forests 
are owned by a descendant living in Hingham ; also his colonial 
four-posted bedstead, surmounted by a crown. Major Thaxter 
removed to Bridgewater in 1771, and the estate was sold to 
Elisha Leavitt. 



84 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

The ** Gamson House/' — Of the houses now standing, 
perhaps the most ancient and interesting is that just east of the 
Gushing House, known as the Perez Lincoln House. Joseph 
Andrews drew this house-lot in 1635, and the oriorinal deed is in 
existence. The house was built before the year 1640, and nine 
generations of the same family have lived under its roof. It is 
the best authenticated " garrison house " that we have. In Kino* 
Philip's War, when the Indians attacked a coast town, they fre- 
quently approached from the water-side. The old fort on the 
hill protected the settlement, while the women and children took 
refuge in the "block house." Several years ago, when this house 
was newl}"" clapboarded, there was found between the outer and 
inner walls a filling apparently of clay stuck together with tough 
grass and of the consistency of mortar. This made a thick 
padding, bullet-proof, which also added to the warmth and 
comfort of the interior. The present owner says that this filling 
still remains on the front and ends of the main house. 

The Barker House. — In the early part of the century 
another old house stood on the site now occupied by the 
National Bank. It was a quaint, unpainted building, hidden by 
woodbine, with a great plane-tree in front. The smooth turf 
was unbroken by stone walks, and crept up close to the ancient 
walls. Here lived the Misses Barker, three intelligent, culti- 
vated women of strong Tory principles and marked individuality 
of character, who are still remembered by the older generation. 
Across the road, to quote from a contemporary manuscript, 
" lay the vegetable gardens of the neighbors, along the borders 
of a little brook that ran through them towards the sea. 
On the right hand, onward to the limit of vision alons: the 




THE GARRISON HOUSE. 1638. 




THE FOLSOM HOUSE. TORN DOWN IN 1875. 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 85 

public way, rise houses, shops of traffic and mechanic art, 
Derby Academy, and the spire of an old wooden church." 

The Lane Homestead. — East of the National Bank is the 
estate on which stands what was once known as " John Norton's 
Mansion House." Since 1820 it has been occupied by Colonel 
Charles Lane and his descendants. The easterly part of the 
house is much older than the rest, and dates back to the middle 
of the seventeenth century. Here lived in his youth Colonel 
Benjamin Church, the conqueror of King Philip. In 1679 the 
three lots of land were sold to the Rev. John Norton, the second 
pastor of the Old Church ; and later the homestead was occupied 
for a time by his successor, Dr. Gay. 

General Lincoln's House* — The house still occupied by the. 
descendants of General Benjamin Lincoln, who received the 
sword of Lord Cornwallis at the surrender of Yorktown, was 
built in 1667 by Thomas Lincoln, the cooper, who came from 
the west of England, and settled in Hingham in 1635-6. It 
was added to in 1694, and again by General Lincoln in 1772. 
This is a curious and interesting old homestead, with large, low, 
wainscoted rooms, and still contains parts of the original 
dwelling. 

The Union Hotel, — now the Cushing House, — is now owned 
and well and neatly kept by George Cushing, hotel-keeper, livery- 
stable proprietor, postmaster, chief of the fire department and 
general utility man. It was probably built before the Revolu- 
tionary War by Dr. Bela Lincoln, a brother of General Lincoln, 
as a central residence. Col. Nathan Rice, a prominent Feder- 



86 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

alist, resided in it after the war. Colonel Rice had a distinguished 
career. Born in Sturbridge, Mass., he was at Harvard College, 
was tutor or law-student with John Adams, and kept school, 
married and settled in Hingham. When the war came on he 
served at the siege of Boston, was military aide to General 
Lincoln, was with Washington at the Battle of Yorktown an 
officer in one of the continental regiments, and said by his 
descendants to have been on Washington's staff, had a com- 
mission in 1798-80 in the threatened war with France, repre- 
sented the town in the General Court, and was active in trade 
and shipping and in many town offices. He was an original 
member of the Cincinnati. 

The Gushing: Homestead. — Near the Cohasset line, in that 
part of Hingham known as Rocky Nook, stand three houses 
which merit the attention of the antiquary. Of these the 
oldest is that known as the Cushing Homestead. It was built by 
Daniel Cushing (son of Matthew, the first Cushing who came to 
this country) in 1679, for Daniel's son, Peter. It has been 
owned and occupied by Peter's descendants to the present time, 
passing for five generations from father to son. It is now owned 
by two daughters of Ned Cushing, Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Tracy. 
When the house was built, there was no road going by it, 
Turkey Hill Lane being the only path from the " Plain " to 
Cohasset. Some of the large timbers in the barn, showing the 
mortises then used, came from the original " Old Church." The 
present " Old Church " was built two years later. 

The Gorham Lincoln House, — Not far away from this 
homestead Stephen, the son of Peter, built another in 1751. 




GENERAL LINCOLN HOUSE. 



J i •. A 




n 



i 




FAMILY ROOM, GEN. LINCOLN HUUbt, WITH PORTRAIT OF THE GENERAL. 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 87 

" For six generations," says a great-great-great-granddaughter, 
"it was the happy home of an old country family." Its present 
occupant is Miss Gertrude Edmands, the well-known singer. 

The Beale House. — Beyond the Gushing homestead, oppo- 
site the North Gohasset station, is the Beale house. This was 
built in 1690-91, two stories high, and contains eighteen rooms. 
The frame is of oak and, as it has always been kept in good 
repair, it seems likely to last two hundred years longer. 
Within, the soft satiny finish of unpainted wood has taken on the 
rich, mellow hue that time alone can give. Beneath the high 
windows are platforms, designed doubtless for the comfort and 
pleasure of the busy housewife, who was thus enabled to " see 
the passing" while busy Avith her needle, — a privilege many of 
the colonial dames must have been denied. The furniture is 
largely antique, much of it being as old as the house. From the 
time of the settlement of the town the estate has been in the 
name of Beale, passing down from generation to generation 
without a break. 

Tranquillity Lodge. — A typical living-room of colonial 
times is to be found at Tranquillity Lodge on Main Street, now 
owned and occupied by Miss Susan Barker Willard. She 
inherited the house from her great-great-grandfather, Henry 
Thaxter, a son of Major Samuel Thaxter above mentioned. 
Back of the house stood Tranquillity Grove, which was once 
famous for its social and political gatherings and from which the 
house was named. 

The "William Lincoln House. — Among the pre-Kevolu- 



88 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

tionary houses in Hingham is one on North Street, immediately 
west of the General Lincoln homestead, which is of interest for 
its antiquity. It has been occupied for many years by descend- 
ants of Samuel Lincoln, and its children of to-day are descended 
also frOm the Paul Revere stock. 

Though the original structure built by Nicholas Jacobs on 
the land granted to him in 1636 is no longer standing, as it was 
partially or wholly destroyed by fire, some of its charred timbers 
and boards are incorporated with the present building, which has 
remained practically unchanged for over a hundred years ; and 
its corner beaufet, the panelling about the fireplaces, and the 
deep window-seats, all date from the last century. If the old 
house ever played any part in the exciting Revolutionary period, 
no record of it has come down to us. Its chief interest is that 
it served to shelter a long line of New England yeomen. 

The Old Gushing- House. — Half-way to Hingham Centre, on 
Main Street, stands an old house the kitchen of which is probably 
part of the first dwelling built in 1692 by Daniel Gushing, son 
of the original Matthew, on a grant of land made to him in 1635. 
From this homestead came all the various branches of the Gushing 
family in the United States, Opposite it, on the " Old Place," 
now owned by Mary Caroline Robbins, stood until 1885 the 
handsome house known as the Matthew Gushing House, having 
been built for Matthew Gushing probably at the same time and 
by the same man who built the Peter Gushing homestead, since 
the architecture of the two is similar. This house had the large, 
low, heavily-beamed rooms and other characteristics of the houses 
of the period ; but, having been uninhabited for years, it gradu- 
ally fell to ruin, and had to be taken down. 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 89 

The Hawkes Fearing House, — At Hingham Centre, opposite 
the Public Library, stands the Fearing House, once a tavern, a 
low, square-roofed dwelling, with two wings of considerable 
antiquity. This house formerly had one of the hinged partitions 
by which our forefathers were able to throw two rooms into one 
when a large space was necessary for entertainments. It was a 
century ago an inn and many exciting ecclesiastical conventions 
were held there. 

The "Wilder House. — The old Wilder house at South Hing- 
ham, practically unchanged for more than two centuries, is the 
scene of the romance embodied in the novel by Mrs. Austin called 
"Nameless Nobleman," though she places the story elsewhere. 
Between its floors was once concealed during our colonial wars a 
French nobleman called Francis LeBaron, who was cared for dur- 
ing his trying confinement by Molly Wilder, whom he afterward 
married. 

The Shute House* — At South Hingham is also to be seen 
the spacious dwelling once occupied by the Rev. Daniel Shute, 
D.D., who was pastor of the Third (afterward the Second) Parish 
of Hingham for fifty-six years, from Dec. 10, 1746, when he was 
first installed. He was a warm friend of Dr. Gay, though they 
were politically opposed, Dr. Shute being as earnest a Whig as 
Dr. Gay was an ardent Tory, His son Daniel served under 
Washington as a surgeon in the Continental Army. 

The homestead lot was bought in 1754, and the house still 
occupied by his descendants was erected soon after. It has six 
rooms on each floor of the main house, and with the ell has nine- 
teen rooms. A number of rooms are panelled to the ceiling on 



90 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

one side. Many of the fireplaces are still in use and much of the 
old furniture. One chamber is preserved in the ancient style 
with the original wall-paper more than one hundred years old, a 
high canopy bed, a chest of drawers, etc. A clock which has 
lasted more than two hundred years stands in the dining-room. 
In the hall is a candle-stick six feet high, the candle holder sliding 
up and down after the same fashion as a modern piano lamp, 
showino; that there is " nothino; new under the sun." John 
Hancock was a student in Rev. Dr. Shute's household and the 
chair which came with the boy and in which he sat is still in the 
house. 

Richard Henry Stoddard, — On North Street not far from the 
Cove was born Reuben Henry Stodder. His father was early 
lost at sea and his mother moved to New York when Reuben was 
a small boy. As is well known, he became a poet of note, whose 
verses are still read and form a part of our literature. He died 
only a few years ago. It is noticeable that he was not altogether 
content with his original homely name of Reuben Henry Stodder 
and changed it to the higher sounding one of Richard Henry 
Stoddard. 

The Malbon House. — The second house on the left going 
west from the corner of Thaxter and Lincoln Streets formerly 
stood on the southwest corner of those streets on what is now 
the great sloping lawn in front of Miss Bradley's residence. 
It is now owned by her and occupied by some of her employes. 
It was originally the home of Daniel Lincoln, the far-back 
maternal ancestor of the present Bouv^ family. The owner pre- 
vious to the Bradleys was Theodore R. Glover, a native of Boston, 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 91 

but after Ms marriage a well-known resident of our town for many 
years. In his youth on a gunning trip in Marshfield, he met 
Mary Thomas Malbon, who became his wife. Her father Micajah 
Malbon and his wife coming from England to this country were 
shipwrecked and thrown on shore at Marshfield. They were 
cared for by Mr. John Thomas in his house, which he later sold 
to Daniel Webster, who took an interest in them and their 
daughter and with whom they were on familiar terms. A prayer 
book is still shown by another daughter which the mother carried 
next her breast during the thirty-six hours she was washed by 
the waves and the imprint of which on her breast lasted all her 
life. After Mr. Glover's marriage he established the Malbon 
family in the house above referred to. The father taught in the 
public schools of Marshfield, Cohasset, and Hingham, in which 
town he was living at the time when his daughter Mary, on a 
visit at the Thomas home in Marshfield, first met Mr. Glover. 
There was a son who commanded one of Mr. Glover's ships and 
four other daughters who married and were prominent in Boston 
and elsewhere, and whose sons and daughters have been a good 
deal identified with the South Shore. 

The Humphrey or Bulfinch House* — This house in excel- 
lent preservation stands on Cottage Street next to the house on 
the southwest corner of that and Ship Street. It is a good type 
of the old-style plain square house with large rooms on either 
side of its broad front door. It appears from Sufi'olk Deeds that 
it formerly stood on Bowdoin Street near Bulfinch in Boston. 
It was then of three stories, the lowest of brick. In 1841 it 
was sold to Hersey Stowell and others of Hingham who, to 
build a new structure on the site, removed and sold it for $100 



92 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

to Capt. Moses L. Humphrey, a mason and contractor of 
Hingham. He took away the two upper stories — the present 
house. It was brought in parts down the harbor to Hingham 
in a packet, and as the tide then reached nearly to the present 
site of the house. Cottage and Otis Streets not then existing, it 
was readily put on that site and reerected in its present form. 
Some of us well remember the highly-colored landscape papering 
or painting on the walls of the main room, not unlike that in 
the Quincy Thaxter or Wompatuck club house. The Humphrey 
family owned and occupied the house till some thirty years ago. 
It is now owned by S. Henry Hooper. 

There is a tradition that it was occupied by the British in 
Boston during the Revolutionary War and that when taken down 
there, a pot of gold was found in the brick work (see Hingham 
Journal of Feb. 3, 1905). 

The Souther House. — This is at the foot of Ship Street 
facing the Cove and more than a hundred years old. There was 
in the old days a good deal of shipbuilding in Hingham and 
Leavitt Souther's shipyard was about where the Hingham Yacht 
Club now is. He married a granddaughter of Thomas Melvill of 
Boston, who was one of the famous Boston Tea Party. Her 
ancient little piano is now owned by Miss Sara J. Lincoln. 
Some of the tea which he carried home from that raid was 
brought to Hingham and was preserved till recently by the 
Souther family. Melvill's grandson, Herman Melville, who 
added an e to the name, married a daughter of Chief Justice 
Shaw and was the author of those South Sea Island stories, 
Typee, Omoo, etc., and of other stories which sixty years ago 
were popular reading. Thomas Melvill died in 1832 and 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 93 

to the last wore the cocked hat and knee breeches of 1775 in 
which costume, in his tottering old age, perhaps the last survivor 
of the Tea Party, he suggested to Oliver Wendell Holmes 
the poem of "The Last Leaf." Mrs. Samuel Downer was a 
granddaughter of Thomas Melvill, whence came the name of 
Melville Gardens, which Mr. Downer adopted in his Downer 
Landing development. 

The Daniel Wetster Statue* — The attention of everybody 
coming to Hingham from Boston in the railroad train is attracted 
by the statue of Webster which stands on the grounds of Mrs. 
Geo. M. Soule, between her house and the track. The house 
stands on the lot assigned at the settlement of Hingham to Samuel 
Lincoln, the ancestor of Abraham Lincoln. The statue was orisi- 
nally the figure head of a Boston ship and came into the posses- 
sion of Mr. Soule at least fifty years ago and has since then stood 
in its present place. It is in excellent preservation and is most 
assiduously cared for. Mrs. Soule is a granddaughter of John 
Thomas of Marshfield who sold to Webster the farm on which he 
lived and died. Webster was fond of fishinij and gunning and 
when he first went to Marshfield for that purpose asked Mr. and 
Mrs. Thomas to entertain him in their house. When he bought 
it he insisted that they should remain in it, which they did till 
Mr. Thomas's death. It is a pretty tribute to the great orator's 
consideration that during all that time he had Mr. and Mrs. 
Thomas occupy their accustomed seats at the head of the table. 
His relations with the family were those of a cordial friendship 
and Mrs. Soule remembers that in her youth she often held a 
hand at whist with him. 



94 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

Mfs. Rowson's Residence. — On the southeast corner of 
Burdett Avenue and Lincoln Street was a small cottage, now 
gone. In this Lieutenant Haswell of the British navy, who was 
an English revenue official at Hull just before the Revolutionary 
"War, was for two or three years after it began detained as a 
prisoner at large. He was then taken to Abington by the pro- 
vincial authorities because there he was farther from the British 
reach. His daughter, Susanna Haswell, then a child of fourteen 
or fifteen years, and who at a later period returned with her 
father to England, became a noted authoress. She wrote many 
stories, the best known of which is " Charlotte Temple," now 
forgotten, but a great favorite in both England and America 
with our forbears. The scene of that and some other stories is 
laid in our vicinity. In one of them is a detailed experience of 
Mrs. Rowson in her childhood, on the occasion of a skirmish 
between some American soldiers, who rowed from Hull to the 
Boston lio;hthouse and burnt it, and the British sailors and 
marines who pursued them. The death and burial of one of the 
latter, which the child herself witnessed, made a deep impression 
on her mind. 

Mrs. Rowson and her husband, who was a singer of some 
note, went upon the stage in England, and later in Philadelphia, 
and still later in the old Federal Street Theatre in Boston. Leav- 
ing: the stao;e Mrs. Rowson became a teacher in Medford, and still 
later had a very successful and fjishionable young ladies' school 
in Boston. Among her pupils were the daughters of leading 
Boston families, a list of whose names survives and recalls the 
ancient flavor of its best citizens. She was also a prolific writer 
of verse, much of which was published. She died in Boston in 
1824. 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 95 

The Tower House, — This house stands on the east side of 
Main Street near the brook that runs between Hingham Centre 
and South Hingham. It was built by John Tower, an original 
settler, near the middle of the seventeenth century. A well dug 
by him is still in use. The house has been in possession of his 
direct descendants ever since, and although additions and repairs 
have been made, the original structure is still standing and con- 
stitutes a part of the Tower homestead to-day. It has been put 
in excellent condition and is a picturesque feature. Two years 
ago in May the descendants of John Tower formed a family 
Tower Association, and in large numbers celebrated the three 
hundredth anniversary of his birth. 

The Old Otdinary. — The tavern or " Old Ordinary," the 
third oldest house in Hingham, stands on a low hill just off the 
Boston Turnpike. The land was granted to Joseph Andrews on 
the settlement of the town in 1635, and here the main portion 
of the house was built about 1650. The front door and two 
windows to the ris-ht mark its oriofinal leno-th. The two windows 
to the left show the next addition made about 1740. Further 
additions were built across the back and at the extreme rioht. 
The dance hall, an addition at the rear, was removed about 1836. 
The old rooftree could tell many interesting stories of Peter 
Hobart and other first settlers, of slaves who labored here in the 
early days, of French Canadians exiled from Grand Pr6, of 
English prisoners during the Revolution, of Daniel "Webster, 
and perhaps of fugitive slaves. From 1650 the Old Ordinary 
remained for two hundred and twenty-three years in the posses- 
sion of some member, near or remote, of the Andrews family 



96 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

who built it. It is now owned by the minister of the First 
Parish. 

The Folsom or Foulsom-Cushingf-Spraguc House, — formerly 
situated at Hingham Centre (or " Little Plain " in the ancient 
vernacular), stood where is now the residence of J. 0. Burdett, 
and was more noticeable from the presence of a single large tree 
which overshadowed it. In the Hingham Journal of Aug. 20, 
1875, the late Fearing Burr says: "The old Sprague house on 
Main Street, Hingham Centre, having become untenantable from 
age, is this week being taken down. 

" Tradition fixes the time of its erection in 1654 ; the frame 
is principally of oak and the posts are enlarged at their connec- 
tion with the plates, like those seen in the Old Meeting House. 
Though for a long period the property of the Sprague family 
passing down in unbroken succession, it is generally believed 
that the house was built, and for a time occupied, by John 
Folsom, who was here as early as 1643-4." 

In his History of Hingham, Solomon Lincoln says : 

" John Folsom married Miss Gilman, sister of the wife of 
Daniel Cushing (son of the original Mathew Cushing), and when 
Folsom removed to New Hampshire, with his family, Daniel 
Cushins: bouo-ht the estate." 

Mr. Isaac Sprague (grandfather of Mr. Isaac Sprague the 
painter, who illustrated Audubon's Birds) was the Sprague 
whose descendants occupied the house for generations. 

Roseneath, a Seventeenth Century Cottage, — On Main 
Street, well back from the road under the shelter of the hillside. 




ROSENEATH COTTAGE. 




DOORWAY - ROSENEATH COTTAGE. 



COLONIAL HOUSES. 97 

and surrounded by the high elm trees for which Hingham is 
noted, stands the cottage owned by Miss Susan B. AVillard. 

It has twice been moved. A persistent tradition asserts 
that when the carpenters were at work on the oak frame of the 
old meeting-house they kept their tools in this cottage, which at 
that time stood in close proximity to the church, and this tradi- 
tion is the only warrant for the statement that the little building 
antedates 1681. It is thus put among the oldest houses in the 
United States. 

One of its interesting features is the " glory hole," which was 
at once the vegetable cellar, the ice-chest, and the safe deposit 
vault of our ancestors. 

It was not, as might at first appear, waste space. In order 
to obtain the thickness of brick wall needed for the deep ovens 
and the fireplaces it was necessary to build the massive chimney 
in a shape not unlike a pyramid, very round at the base and 
sloping in a sharp angle to the roof which was only a story and a 
half from the ground. 

This left in the middle of the chimney a considerable space, 
conical in shape, and broad enough at the bottom to make a siz- 
able and convenient storeroom. In the winter it kept the 
vegetables from freezing ; in the summer it kept the milk and 
butter cool. And throughout the year the family valuables were 
here safe from harm. 

This queer little brick closet which measures four by six feet, 
is fireproof, warm in the winter and cool in summer. It suggests, 
too, what one now pays every year for, a safe deposit box. 

It may be that the present generation sometimes sighs for 
the return of the glory hole, and the simple way of living it 
represented. 



98 COLONIAL HOUSES. 

Jabez Wilder House^ — familiarly known as the "Rainbow- 
roofed " house, is on the right hand side of Main Street as one 
comes up the first rise from Hingham Centre. 

Jabez, son of the first Edward, the ancestor of all who have 
borne this surname in Hingham and vicinity, lived on the paternal 
homestead and was a brother of the charming " Molly Wilder " 
in Miss Austen's story. In his will, dated June, 1728, he gives 
to his son Jabez the " New dwellino;-house on the side of the hi^h- 
way at South Hingham," and he mentions a black oak tree 
" standing on the boundary line between brother Ephraim's 
homestead and mine." The inventory of his estate includes in a 
long list of personal property, books, arms, gold plate, hour- 
glass, side saddle pillion, seven sdp ( ?) of bees, a loom and 
weaving tackle. 



To give the full details of all the interesting habitations of 
the colonial period which still are to be found in our well-pre- 
served old town, is impossible within the limits of a brief article ; 
but in historic interest, in picturesque charm and characteristic 
detail, they compare favorably with those of any village in Massa- 
chusetts, and are tenderly and respectfully cherished by those who 
have had the good fortune to inherit them. Many of them were 
taverns, in some of which there were British prisoners during the 
Revolutionary War, of whom quaint traditions still linger. 




THE " MOLLY WILDER ■ HOUSE. 




the; JABEZ WILDER OR "RAINBOW ROOF" HOUSE. 



DR. EBENEZER GAY. 

IF it should be asked what one figure stands out in the pre- 
Revolutionary local history of Hingham, there is little doubt 
that the answer would be "Dr. Gay." It was not merely that 
for almost seventy years he was the pastor of the church, at a 
time when the church was the town, but he was also a man of 
extraordinary dignity and strength of character, who commanded 
universal respect and affection. Hingham was never disloyal to 
her minister, though he was a Tory, and set his face against 
the cause she was fighting for. The small boys ran from him 
in the street, so great was their awe of his stern presence ; yet 
his friends claimed for him a beauty of countenance difficult for 
us to imagine who have only his portrait to look upon. Great 
indeed must have been the personal force of the man to have left 
such an imprint upon his day and generation. Many anecdotes 
are told of him which are as valuable as columns of biography. 

On one occasion a deputation of Boston gentlemen came 
down to remonstrate with him on the liberality of his preaching. 
Suspecting their errand, Dr. Gay received them with all cor- 
diality, and, before hostilities could commence, related to them 
the adventures of his friend Dr. Chauncy, who had just crossed 
the ocean. His vessel had encountered a violent storm, and 
destruction had seemed inevitable ; " but," said Dr. Gay, " with 
the captain at the helm, and only his voice heard above the storm, 
crying, ' Steady, boys, steady ! ' the good ship sailed into port, 
colors flying and all hands safe." Like President Lincoln's 
advisers in a similar situation, the guests were somewhat discon- 

(99) 



100 DR. EBENEZER GAY. 

certed ; and, having partaken of their host's hospitality, they 
departed without alluding to the object of their visit. 

One day Dr. Gay was riding to Boston in company with a 
friend, when they came in sight of the old gallows at Boston 
Neck. "Where would you be, my friend," inquired his com- 
panion, jocosely, " if that gallows had its due ? " " Riding alone 
to Boston ! " was Dr. Gay's prompt response. 

Mr. Nye (the schoolmaster) and Dr. Gay were once invited 
to a party given by Colonel Thaxter to the governor and his 
council. Mr. Nye, who was a Harvard graduate, professed great 
trepidation at meeting so august an assembly, and asked if it was 
probable that his own scholarly ability would be recognized. 

"My dear sir," said Dr. Gay, "say nothing whatever about 
it ; and I am sure His Honor will never suspect it." 

In an old beaufet in Dr. Gay's house was found the follow- 
ing letter, written to his " children," then in middle life them- 
selves : 

Dedham, June 19, 1784. 
Dear Children, — I am by the importunity of my friends, contrarj'^ to my 
purpose, detained here. Mr. Thacher comes to jireach for me. You will 
give him suitable enteriafiZement. He will be very acceptable to the people. 
Be not anxious about your poor father. He is in ordinary health. Colonel 
Pond intends to bring me home on Monday. You may expect me by noon. 
With submission to Providence, to which I commend you, 

Ebenezer Gay. 

p.S. — Upon second thoughts, Colonel Pond agrees with me to carry me 
to Weymouth ; and you must send Aaron with our chaise to General Lovel's 
in the forenoon. 

E. G. 

This letter not only shows the writer's tender relations with 
his family, but also his sense of fun in the transcription of 



DR. EBENEZER GAY. 101 

" entertainment." The ride to Dedliam in those days was a long 
one. The Hingham and Quincy bridges were not built for 
twenty-five years after. General Lovel probably lived at the 
head of Fore River, now Weymouth Landing. 

The familiar story is told of Dr. Gay that one night he lay in 
wait with a dark lantern to discover who was taking hay from 
his barn. Presently the thief came along, carrying a large 
bundle of hay upon his back. Taking the candle from the 
lantern, and following softly after. Dr. Gay thrust it into the 
middle of the hay, which was presently in a fine blaze, to the 
great terror of the bearer. A few days after the culprit appeared 
to confess his misdeed. He was convinced that fire from heaven 
had been sent to punish him, and even Dr. Gay's explanation 
failed to change his belief. 

Knowing his Tory principles, the Committee of Safety once 
visited the minister to inquire what arms he had in the house. 
Their courage forsook them when they were fairly in his presence, 
and it was with faltering hesitation that they finally made known 
their errand. The good doctor looked at them for a moment with 
mild reproach before he answered, laying his hand on the large 
Bible which lay open upon his table, "Gentlemen, these are my 
arms ; and I trust they will prove sufiicient." 




THE GAY HOUSE OX NORTH STREET, HINGHA.M, 
AND THE OLD TORY. 

OLIVER TTEXDELL HOL^vIES speaks somewhere of the 
house standing "gable end to the street," in a manner 
implying that all proper old houses do stand in that position, but 
the house on Xorth Street built by Dr. Ebenezer Gay stands 
eaves side to the street, and is certainly as proper and respec- 

(102) 



THE GAY HOUSE AND THE OLD TORY. 103 

table, as an old house need be, from age, appearance and history. 
Dr. Gay preached in the old meeting-house of the First Parish 
from 1718 to 1787, and some time between the former date and 
1750 it is said his house was built. 

During its building he lived in the next house to the "West, 
since altered and enlarged into two dwellings at present occupied 
by Mrs. Lane and Mr. Nelson, and one of the many stories told 
of the parson was of his well, dug probably while he was living 
in that house. 

It is a very dry, sandy hillside where the house stands and 
the well was sunk, and after oroin^ down throusfh drv ground for 
many feet the well diggers urged the parson to give it up and 
try elsewhere. 

By Saturday night, utterly discouraged, they told him it was 
useless to dig deeper, for no water could be found there and they 
must begin again in a more promising place. Sunday morning 
he preached an eloquent sermon, taking for his text, Xumbers, 
xxi, 17; Spring up, O "Well; which so inspired the well dig- 
gers that they went to work Monday morning with renewed hope 
and soon struck a stream of clear, cold water which is flowing to 
this day. And the story goes on that when in times of drought 
the neighbors' wells ran dry the parson's well yielded an abun- 
dance for all. 

The house standing on a hillside above the street and eaves 
side toward it is, except for the addition of the projecting front 
entrance, a wood shed and a chimney, the counterpart of the 
Noah's Ark of our childhood. It is just about as simple as 
an ark in its lines and trimmings but well proportioned and 
dignified. 

The timbers are of hard wood, hand hewed, the walls are 



104 THE GAY HOUSE AND THE OLD TORY. 

filled in with brick and double sheathed on the outside. The 
clapboards, evidently made by hand, are in short lengths and 
overlap each other at the ends with a long tapering chamfer. 

The interior finish is simple except on either side of the fire- 
place in the two main rooms down-stairs, where there is some 
well-made wooden paneling, and the wooden mantel-pieces are 
quite elaborate. 

In the eighteenth century the plumb, level and square were 
evidently not accounted of much use as aids to construction, for 
there is hardly a plumb line, a level surface or a square corner in 
the house, nevertheless it is a sturdy, well built structure which 
has stood the test of time as few modern structures will be able 
to do. 

It has sheltered the Gay family for upward of two hundred 
years and has never been out of their hands, and children of the 
sixth generation from Dr. Gay now live in it. 

THE OLD TOEY. 

The old mahogany secretary now in the house built by 
Parson Gay on North Street has been known in the family for 
many years as the "Old Tory," because its original owner, 
Martin Gay of Boston, son of the minister, was a prominent 
Tory during the Revolution. 

Where it was made or when it came into the family, are not 
known, but that it was in his house in Union Street before the 
Revolution is pretty well established by the tradition that it was 
taken by its owner to Nova Scotia when the British troops left 
Boston in 1776 and was brought back by him when the war was 
over. 

Martin Gay was prescribed and banished by the Patriot 




THE OLD TORY. 



THE GAY HOUSE AND THE OLD TORY. 105 

Government, and when the British left Boston he went with 
them, taking some of his family and some of his portable prop- 
erty beyond the reach of confiscation or theft. He had so little 
faith in the honesty of the " rebels," probably supposing them 
to be no better than the English soldiers who had looted the 
stores of his patriot friends during their absence with the army, 
that he packed the silver communion service of the West Church, 
Boston, of which he, as deacon, was the custodian, in the 
drawers of the secretary and took that with him also. The ser- 
vice was returned when, in due course, order was established in 
Boston, but in the meanwhile many unpleasant things were said 
of the Deacon. 

After his death the Old Tory spent a half century where it 
now stands, and then, having been bequeathed to Sydney Howard 
Gay, stood for another half century in his house on Staten 
Island, N.Y. 

It is a well-designed piece of furniture and a fine example 
of mechanical skill in mahogany and solid brass, but it does not 
show to advantage in the low studded room of the old house, 
where the gilt eagle with spreading wings over the cornice 
cannot stand upright on his perch. 

Completely hidden in the interior, there is a secret recess 
which would be hard to discover without knowledge of the cun- 
ning fastening which protects it. In the recess there is room 
for two small boxes which might have held enough gold pieces to 
have made a comfortable fortune one hundred and fifty years ago. 

Martin Gay. 



\ 



THE HAZLITTS. 

SOME sixty or more years ago (1835-38) Margaret, only sur- 
viving daughter of the Rev. William Hazlitt, wrote her 
" Recollections of a Visit to America," which she made with her 
parents and her brothers John and William in 1783. Margaret 
was a pleasant writer, and related with great distinctness the 
various scenes through which the family passed. She was then 
twelve years of age, John fifteen, and William five years old. 
After landing in New York, the family went to Philadelphia. 
The father, not being able to find steady professional employ- 
ment, set out for Boston in June, 1784, where he preached for a 
time in the Brattle Street Church. The family followed in 
August. From Perth Amboy, N.J., they went on to New York 
in a little sloop, and thence by a coasting vessel to Newport, 
R.I. They reached their final destination on the second day 
from New York, passing through Jamaica Plain, the beautiful 
scenery of which Margaret describes in terms of praise. 

They lodged at a boarding-house on State Street, kept by a 
Mrs. Gray and her two sisters, where they remained three weeks, 
a reunited family. They then went to a farmhouse in Lower 
Dorchester, kept by a Mr. Withington. Here they lived seven 
weeks, when the father had an offer of a good and cheap house 
at Weymouth. The family were two days in getting settled in 
that ancient town, and on the way stayed over night at the house 
of Judge Cranch in Braintree. The house in Weymouth belonged 
to the wife of John Quincy Adams, then ambassador to England. 

This house contained a very large and old painting, said to 

(106) 




A HAZLITT PANEL. 



THE HAZLITTS. 107 

have been one of the first of Copley's, who afterward became a 
painter of great celebrity in Boston. He was the father of Lord 
Lyndhurst, the English statesman. Copley and his family 
removed to England before the Revolutionary War, and they 
never returned to the United States. 

On this picture the youthful Margaret used to gaze with 
intense delight. It was the story of Jacob and Esau. The 
meeting of the brothers, the camels and cattle, the followers on 
either side and in the background marching up between the hills 
and seeming to vanish in the air, completed her enchantment ; 
and she ever bore the scene in remembrance as one of the joys of 
her girlhood. 

William Hazlitt, the younger brother, afterward became the 
celebrated English critic and essayist. Being then not six years 
of age, he was kept in the house during the heat of the day, and 
not allowed out until four in the afternoon. Margaret relates 
her experiences of the Hingham and Boston road, from which 
she had excellent views of Bunker's Hill and Dorchester Heights. 

Their father, the reverend minister, would sometimes go to 
Boston to deliver lectures upon the Evidences of Christianity, 
taking the older boy, John, with him. At that time the Rev. 
Ebenezer Gay was the Unitarian minister at Hingham.* In 
1785 the Rev. Mr. Hazlitt occasionally went to Salem to preach. 
While living in Weymouth, the boy John spent a great deal of 
his time in Hingham, where he painted many portraits. Perhaps 

* The elder Hazlitt frequently exchanged with Dr. Gay, and U3ed to bring his son 
William with him. The story is that the little lad sat in the pulpit behind his father; and we 
may imagine England's future essayist curbing his boyish restlessness through the long 
sermon, under the eyes of the congregation, — a congregation which often numbered 
between five and seven hundred, since in those days there were few stay-at-liomes from 
church. 



108 THE HAZLITTS. 

some of his earliest efforts may still be in the old town, and it is 
not unlikely that he ornamented the panels in the old Thaxter 
house with his paintings of local scenery. The writer of this 
article passed a considerable portion of every year, almost a half- 
century ago, in Hingham, where his ancestors and his wife's 
ancestors were born ; and, without being decidedly certain, he 
thinks that the name Hazlitt was in some way connected with 
these panel paintings. They are such works as a young and 
untaught artist would be likely to produce. 

At that period the Rev. jNlr. Freeman was the minister at 
King's Chapel in Boston, and he was aided in preparing the 
liturg}^ by Mr. Hazlitt. The family removed to Upper Dor- 
chester, and finally returned to England in 1784, when William 
was educated at the Unitarian College at Hackley. He began 
life as an artist ; but he threw up this profession in disgust, 
although his work pleased his friends. He then removed to 
London, and became a Parliamentary reporter for several of the 
daily journals. Thus commenced a literary career which termi- 
nated onl}^ at his death in 1830. Alison in his "History of 
Europe," Professor John Wilson (Christopher Xorth) in Black- 
wood, Lord Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review, Sergeant Thomas 
Noon Talfourd, the author of the beautiful drama of "Ion," all 
gave the greatest praise to William Hazlitt, who stands to-day 
at the very head of British critics and essayists. 

Benjamin F. Stevens. 



The following extract from the Worcester Spy, written by 
one of its correspondents, relates to the Quincy Thaxter House, 
now the Wompatuck Club. It was written more than thirty 



THE HAZLITTS. 109 

years ago, when the homestead was still occupied by a member 
of the Thaxter family. 

Last week I was in Hingham in a house two hundred or more years old 
— a house modernized just enough to be comfortable, but not enough to lose 
its thoroughly antique air. The front door with eighteen small panes of 
glass opens from a simple broad piazza into a large low parlor, not low 
enough for discomfort even under the great beams which cross the ceiling, 
but quite low enough to mark the age of the building. 

No stairs are visible. They are crowded into small entries at each end 
of the house ; but two other parlors lead from the central one on the south 
and west and are connected with it by wide doors which stand open and give 
an air of magnificent space and royal hospitality. But the crowning glory 
of the room that makes it unique is its painted panels. Thei'e are seventeen 
of them, the largest two feet square ; the smallest running round one of the 
doors less than two inches wide and two feet or more long. 

These are all painted in landscape or Japanese-looking plants in brown 
shading on reds and yellows, and were done when the house was built. They 
are in perfect preservation. One scene is Boston Harbor, one the old Harvard 
College green with the first building there. The others seem to be composi- 
tions with towers or ruins. They have not much artistic merit, but are curious 
and add greatly to the charm of the rooms, which are furnished with handsome 
old furniture. 



THE THAXTER, NOW THE WOMPATUCK CLUB, 

HOUSE. 

THERE were settlers at Bare Cove as early as 1633. An 
order of the General Court, adopted and entered Sept. 2, 

1635, is as follows: "The name of Bare Cove is changed and 
hereafter to be called Hingham." This latter date is the one 
accepted as that of the permanent settlement of the town. 

All the land which is included in the territory bounded by 
North Street, West Street, South Street, and the Mill Pond was 
known as the " Town Street " and all the earliest grants of 
houselots " butted " on the " Town Street." The first grants of 
houselots, thirty in number, were made Sept. 18, 1635. They 
extended the entire length of what is now North Street. July 3, 

1636, houselots were granted on what is now South Street. 
About five acres was the usual amount of land granted to each. 
Among them was the following : 

" Given unto John Farro by the Town of Hingham, for a House Lot, 
five acres of land ; Butting upon the Town Street northward ; and upon 
William Ludkin's land and the Common southward ; bounded with the land 
of Thomas Lincoln, miller, eastward, and with the land of George Russell 
•westward." 

This was the third lot westward from the corner of Bachelor 
Street, now Main Street. 

April 27, 1680, Joseph Homes, of Boston, Trustee of Jane 
Bate, widow of Lieut. Benjamin Bate, who died in 1678, con- 
veyed to Ensign John Thaxter several houses and lands, marshes 
and commons, among them one houselot of five acres bounded 

(110) 



THE THAXTER, NOW WOMPATUCK CLUB, HOUSE, 111 

on the Town Street north, Daniel Gushing south, Nathaniel Beal 
east, and Joseph Bate west, with the dwelling house and all the 
barns, etc., which Benjamin Bate purchased of John Farrow 
[Suffolk Deeds, 15-194]. 

Ensign John Thaxter or his descendants subsequently owned 
all the land on South Street from the corner of Main Street 
nearly to the present lot of William O. Lincoln. 

A part of the original grant to John Farro, which was pur- 
chased in 1680 by Ensign John Thaxter, remained in possession 
of members of the Thaxter family for nearly two hundred years, 
when it was conveyed to Bishop Williams, April 26, 1877, and 
became the parochial residence of the Roman Catholic priest of 
the Church of St. Paul. At a later date the property adjacent 
to the church was purchased for a parochial residence and the 
South Street estate was conveyed to Mrs. Ellen C. Keenan, who 
occupied it for a few years and July 30, 1900, conveyed it to the 
Wompatuck Club. 

Whether or not a part of the present building is the dwelling 
house " which Benjamin Bate purchased of John Farrow " and 
which was purchased by Ensign John Thaxter, in 1680, it is 
impossible to determine. If it was not then standing it must 
have been built shortly after that date, for the writer has evidence 
of its existence in 1695. The house originally had two rooms in 
front, the " Hall," which includes the easterly half of the large 
assembly room of the club, and the " Front Room," now the 
reception room, on the first floor, and the two rooms above, 
with the front entry and the stairs between. The front door 
opened directly into the " Hall." The westerly end of the house 
was added when Mr. Quincy Thaxter was married, in 1786. 
Interesting evidence of this addition may be seen in the attic, 



112 THE THAXTER, NOW WOMPATUCK CLUB, HOUSE. 

where a portion of the original westerly end remains with the 
clapboards still upon it. At or about the time this addition was 
made it was the only house standing on South Street between 
Main Street and the "Anchor Tavern" or Bates House, which 
stood on the site of the house first occupied by the club. All 
the other houses now standing within these limits were built on 
land purchased from the Thaxters. 

From 1783 to 1787 Rev. William Hazlitt, a Unitarian 
clergyman, from England, was in this country. His eldest son, 
John Hazlitt, born in England in 1768, came here with his 
family and while here painted the panels in the assembly room 
of the club. He was afterwards a miniature painter and painted 
the miniature of his father, which hangs over the fireplace. 
John Hazlitt died in England in 1837. His brother, "William 
Hazlitt, was the noted essayist. The miniature of Rev. William 
Hazlitt was presented to the Wompatuck Club by Miss Susan 
Barker Willard, in 1901. A long and interesting account of 
the Hazlitts in America is in print. They lived a part of the 
time in Weymouth and the father preached several times for Dr. 
Gay, in the Old Meeting-house, and his son sat in the pulpit 
with him. It is said he was desirous of securing the position of 
minister of the First Parish to succeed Dr. Gay who was then 
nearly ninety years old, but the desire was not fulfilled. 

In 1835, Miss Harriet Martineau, the eminent authoress, 
while on a visit to this country from England, was the recipient 
of social attentions in this house, where she was met by many of 
our town's people. 

It is interestinof to note the fact that there were two houses in 
Hingham, near to each other, built upon a similar plan, and both 
these houses were Thaxter houses, owned and occupied by mem- 



THE THAXTER, NOW WOMPATUCK CLUB, HOUSE, 113 

bers of the same family. One stood where the Catholic Church 
now stands, opposite Broad Bridge, and the other is the club 
house. In each the front entrance was directly into a large 
"Hall" or square room, with the front entry and stairs at one 
side, and in each house there were panels painted by JohnHazlitt. 
The writer knows of but one other house in Hingham constructed 
on this plan. 

After the purchase of this house by the Wompatuck Club, 
in 1900, additions and changes were made to adapt it to club 
uses. The bowling alley was added, a new front porch was 
built and some internal changes were made, the most conspicu- 
ous of which was the removal of one of the chimneys and some 
partitions, in order to throw as much space as possible into the 
assembly room. The beams in the ceiling indicate to a certain 
extent the earlier arrangrement of the rooms. In 1904 a con- 
siderable addition was made to the billiard room. In all the 
changes in the older parts of the house its ancient features have 
been carefully preserved and it is somewhat remarkable that the 
quaint painted panels have been allowed to remain in a fine state 
of preservation by the successive owners through so many years. 

The Wompatuck Club was incorporated April 24, 1897. 
It takes its name from Wompatuck, who was the Chief Sachem 
of Massachusetts, which included Hingham, and who, with two 
other Indians, in 1665, conveyed all the territory of Hingham to 
the inhabitants thereof that they might " quietly possess and 
enjoy " the same. The " mark " of Wompatuck on the deed was 
adopted by the club as the emblem on its seal. For the first 
three years of its existence the club occupied the house of 
Mr. William O. Lincoln, on South Street, which was the site of 
the old " Anchor Tavern " where LaFayette was once entertained. 



114 THE THAXTER, NOW WOMPATUCK CLUB, HOUSE. 

LaFayette is thus described by one who saw him here in Septem- 
ber, 1778 : 

" Gen. LaFayette was here in the war and went to Nantasket. The 
French Fleet lay in the roads. He stopped at the Anchor Tavern and spent 
the night. He had one person only with him, an aide or waiter. LaFayette 
wore buff waistcoat and breeches, boots and spurs, plain blue coat, gilt 
buttons with some ornament and device on them, — I think no epaulettes, — 
three cornered hat and cockade. They came on horseback, wore swords, and 
had pistols. The aide wore more ornament than LaFayette." 

Photographs of the " Anchor Tavern " and of the Thaxter 
House opposite Broad Bridge, previously alluded to, hang in the 
club house. 

Francis H. Lincoln. 



A TRUE FISH STORY. 

THE Gushing mansion at Rocky Nook is one of the oldest 
houses in Hingham, dating back to the seventeenth cen- 
tury. It is a quaint old house, with great bare beams crossing 
its low-ceiled rooms ; and it stands under the shadow of a huge 
elm-tree, which bears the legend nailed over its heart, " Trans- 
planted in 1729." 

Here, about fifty years ago, was gathered a gay company of 
summer guests, among whom was Mr. Epes Sargent, then the 
able editor of the Boston Transcript; and here, one pleasant 
afternoon, a party was formed to go and " see the fishes fed." 
A footpath led from the rear of the house, through meadow and 
woodland, to an open field where stood a large iron foundry on 
the borders of a lovely pond, from which Weir River wanders to 
the sea. The scene was beautiful, but wild and solitary in the 
extreme, save for the foundry buildings and the home of the 
proprietor. 

A request to see " the little girl who fed the fishes " brought 
out a child of about six years, dressed in a pink calico gown, 
cut low in the neck and with short sleeves, as was then the 
fashion. On her head she wore a large blue gingham sunbonnet, 
with ample cape to keep her from " tanning," one of the seven 
cardinal sins in those days. In her hand was a little willow 
basket containing some pieces of sweet white bread. With a 
gravity beyond her years, she led her guests to the border of the 
pond, where seated upon a large flat rock, she proceeded to call 
the fishes. " Pou-ty ! pou-tj' ! pou-ty ! " called the childish 

(115) 



116 A TRUE FISH STORY. 

voice, which went echoing over the water. The first syllable 
was long drawn out ; and the last had a rising inflection, irre- 
sistibly funny. 

It proved a magic cry, however, for up from the slimy 
depths came a score or more of ugly-looking horned pouts, 
crowding and pushing around her little hand, which held a piece 
of bread beneath the water. 

Over and over each other they rolled in their eagerness to 
get the first bite ; while the child patted them on the head or let 
them slip through her hands, carefully avoiding pressure on the 
sharp horn concealed in the dorsal fin. 

" Tur-ty ! tur-ty ! tur-ty ! " rang the plaintive voice again ; 
and widening rings in the water, here and there, at varying dis- 
tances from the shore, betrayed the presence of the turtles, 
whose shining black heads popped up to reconnoitre. " Come, 
turty, good tarty ! " coaxed their little mistress ; and, after many 
feints, one or two of the shy amphibians were persuaded to 
approach near enough to snatch a wedge-shaped bite of the 
tempting morsel, which was often remorselessly taken from them 
by the greedy fishes. 

One small turtle, no larger than the palm of the child's 
hand, had lost one of his forepaws in some prehistoric age, and, 
in consequence, rejoiced in the name of "Three-paw." He was 
very tame, and permitted his little friend to take him from the 
water and feed him, thus protecting him from assault. Another 
quaint feature of the exhibition was "Old Snapper," a mud 
turtle renowned alike for his morose temper and his strength of 
jaw. There were about twenty turtles, of various kinds ; but 
each was known by some distinguishing feature. 

Mr. Sargent learned that the fishes and turtles were native 



A TRUE FISH STORY. 117 

to the pond, which at all times furnished the essentials for a fish 
dinner, so they were not dependent upon the child's favors for 
their food. They had been gradually tamed, during the two 
preceding years, by the simple law of kindness ; and the child 
loved her strange pets as other children love their dogs and 
kittens. The fishes made their appearance each year about the 
first of May, and Avent into winter quarters by the first of 
October. They were always particular as to diet. They did 
not eat meat, and rejected the sour baker's bread of that period 
with prompt disgust. 

Being much interested, Mr. Sargent published an account 
of what he had seen in the next issue of the Transci'ipt, with the 
result that the peaceful, sylvan home of the child was invaded by 
curious visitors from far and near ; and for several years their 
numbers mounted into the thousands, representing many 
nationalities. No fee was ever charged, but the little girl was 
generously recompensed by many. However, the strain was 
too great ; and her parents, not wishing to make the feeding a 
public exhibition, were compelled to discontinue it, although 
some of the fishes long remained the pets of their old friend. 

The story was afterward published by Mr. Sargent in one of 
his school readers. 

Helen Whiton. 

Note : Can't you guess who was the little girl ? — Editok. 



THE CHIME OF BELLS. 

" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea." 

BELLS and the lowing of the homeward coming cows, and the 
close of the day — at Stoke and at Old Hingham ! How 
much of Eno;lish rural and village life is timed to the sound of 
bells ! How much of our life is started and stopped by the toot 
of steam whistles ! 

Only on the quiet mornings, as on a peaceful Sabbath in 
June, or a golden morning in Indian summer, will the sweet 
swingino^ chimes of New Hino^bam's Memorial Tower float over 
the tree-tops to me, here in Mullein Hill, in the extreme south 
of the town. For here in Great Plain I am as far away from 
Bare Cove and the hill where the tower will stand as any resident 
of the town can he ; but when the wind is right — and sometimes 
the wind is right — I shall hear the bells — the voice of Old 
Hingham beyond the sea, the voice of old days, of old customs, 
old faiths, old hopes, — forever new. 

In the whir of the shop wheels, and the roar of the city 
streets, we could not hear the angelus. But the streets of 
Hingham are quiet, and over the wide fields of this town of homes 
are many a man and woman who, at sound of the evening bells, 
will pause in their work to pray. 

As this book goes to press a memorial tower is about to be 
erected in honor of the founders of the town, and in this tower 
will be hung a peal of bells, copies of ancient bells in England 
that were known to the forefathers before they migrated. The 

(118) 



THE CHIME OF BELLS. 119 

tower will stand at the entrance to the Old Burying Ground and 
adjacent to the Meeting House. It will contain the ancient block 
of flint sent from Old Hingham. 

Twenty-five hundred donors have made the tower with its 
peal of bells possible. Their names are to be inscribed in the 
Book of Donors to be kept in the tower. Among these is the 
name of the Reverend Louis C. Cornish, minister of the rir.^t 
Parish in Hingham. Let it stand illuminated on the parchment, 
for to Mr. Cornish, his dreams and efforts, as well as to those 
sending gifts though it be from the ends of the earth, is the town 
of Hingham indebted for this memorial tower with its peal of 
bells. 

Dallas Lore Sharp. 



THE HINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTS AND CRAFTS. 

IN the month of October, 1901, the Hingham Society of Arts 
and Crafts was oro^anized. 

In the words of its simple constitution : " Its purpose is to 
promote artistic work in all branches of handicraft. It endeavors 
to stimulate an appreciation of the dignity and value of good 
design and to establish a medium of exchange between the pro- 
ducer and consumer." 

The society has a permanent exhibition and salesroom in 
the building of the Hingham Water Company, one minute's walk 
from the Hingham Railroad Station. This room is open to the 
public each week on Tuesday and Thursday morning and after- 
noon and on Saturday afternoon. 

The handicrafts of the society at present are dyeing (vege- 
table) basket materials, making baskets, rugs, embroidery and 
netting, spinning and weaving, doing bead work, cabinet work, 
making candles from the wax of the bay berry, metal work, 
toy furniture, leather work, photographs and printing, and 
desio-nino-. 

Baskets and rugs were the first industries attempted. As 
soon as the society was organized the interest in basketry became 
apparent. During the first few months about twenty women 
took up the work as an industry, some becoming weavers of 
reed baskets, and others of raffia and palm leaf. A great stimu- 
lus to the work was found in visits to old garrets, the dim 
interiors of which concealed many long hidden treasures, quaint 

(120) 



THE HINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTS AND CRAFTS. 121 

in shape and of curious workmanship, brought years ago from 
foreign countries by the old sea captains of Hingham. 

These afforded material for study ; and the interest in find- 
ing out how they were made and in adapting the ideas suggested 
to new uses was unflagging. 

Many different shapes of waste baskets have been repro- 
duced, and two or three new styles such as pie, picnic, and 
luncheon baskets made, while the shapes and sizes of mending 
and sewing baskets as well as flower trays and letter baskets are 
legion. 

There are also " forget-me-not " baskets with the coloring 
true to nature, designed to hold a bunch of these flowers which 
are as intimately connected with Hingham as the " Sabbatia " is 
with Plymouth. 

Then there are baskets for violets, with wicker work over 
slass in the delicate violet shades. 

One of the members owns an old-fashioned loom on which 
the rag rugs are woven. The New England braided rugs of our 
grandmother's day are a specialty with this society and are most 
durable, and give an air of comfort and repose to a room. 

In metal work forging has been successfully attempted in 
brass, copper, and silver, the gorgeous color of the enameling 
suggesting a butterfly's wing or a ruby-throated humming bird. 

One of the chief aims of the society is to revive the old 
white embroider}'" of our grandmothers. This it reproduces and 
adapts to modern uses, keeping as closely as possible to the 
spirit of the colonial needlewomen. 

Cross-stitch designs have been adapted from old " samplers ; " 
at the present writing great interest has been shown in a revival 



122 THE HINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTS AND CRAFTS. 

of this work and old samplers are eagerly sought and lucky are 
those who own them. 

Complete outfits for bedroom furnishings are made in the 
netted fringes, entire canopies for four-posted bedsteads, besides 
the smaller doilies for the dining table. 

Photographs of natural scenery in and around Hingham are 
most artistic in composition and in distribution of light and 
shade. 

Bayberry dips, redolent as they are of the pastures and 
woods, have a widespread reputation. 

Hingham used to be called " Bucket Town " and still is for 
that matter. When the bucket industry was at its height Hing- 
ham was always astir, sending most of her output to the West 
Indies. But as in the case of other industries, when machines 
came in use and the buckets could be made more quickly and 
cheaply, handwork w^as driven out. 

Mr. George Fearing, the sole survivor of these hand- 
workers, owns several sets of these old tools which cannot now 
be duplicated. 

Until very recently (being now incapacitated by age and 
infirmities) he has used these tools in making nests of boxes and 
buckets, riggings of different sizes, and colonial toy furniture. 

Hingham has always been famous for its wooden ware ; in 
the old days the busy hammer of the cooper was heard in all 
parts of the town. 

The art will not die out, however, for in the last few years 
younger men have come to the fore and are reproducing many 
choice designs in the toy furniture for baby houses, modeled 
from the John Carver and John Alden chairs with rush bottom 
seats. Toy mirrors are an exact reproduction of the old colonial 



THE HINGHAM SOCIETY OF ARTS AND CRAFTS. 123 

mirrors and are in different sizes from one suitable for a toy 
baby house to one for my lady's chamber, having appropriate 
pictures at the top in color. 

With this historic background, it was very natural that this 
society should choose for its legend the "Hingham Bucket." 
No article made by the members of the society and approved by 
its committee is offered for sale without the mark of the Hins:- 
ham Bucket. 

The Hingham Society has affiliated itself with the National 
League of Handicraft Societies. 

The annual sale of several days usually takes place during 
the month of July. 

The society sets for itself a very high standard and compels 
itself to live up to it : its sphere of usefulness is constantly 
increasing, the sales each year being in advance of the year pre- 
vious, while its wares are in demand and are sent to nearly all 
the leading cities in our great country. 

It has been an inspiration to the formation and development 
of many other societies, and is always ready to offer a helping 
hand to younger societies who have " caught the spirit " but lack 
experience. 

William Morris once said : " Have nothing in your house 
which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." 
This sentence contains the whole essence of the movement in a 
nutshell. With this duty recognized it will not take many 
generations before a real and individual taste will be developed, 
which will do away with many of the unnecessary luxuries of 
our modern life and lead to more simple living and higher 
thinking;. 

Susan B. Willard. 



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